LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE 



MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL 



BY 



REV. THOMAS McGRADY, 
St. 3Uttjomf GTtjmrctj, -Mnme, €tj. 




flrmteo for ttje &uttjor. 
CURTS & JENNINGS, CINCINNATI, O. 



8ECON0 OOPY, 
1899. 







40238 



COPYRIGHT BY 
THOMAS MCGRADY, 



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PREFACE 



IS NOWING that this volume is sadly deficient 
*^ in literary merit, I feel diffident in present- 
ing it to an enlightened public. I hope that my 
readers will not regard it as an indication of ego- 
tism if I offer an apology for the many crudities 
which characterize this work. When I began my 
course of lectures on "The Mistakes of Ingersoll," 
several intimate friends requested me to publish 
them in the columns of the press. I refused to 
comply with their solicitations, giving as my 
reason that I have never written lectures or ser- 
mons, depending altogether on the inspiration of 
the moment for my success as a public speaker. 
Moreover, I thought that the time spent in prepar- 
ing my lectures for the press could be more profit- 
ably employed in other studies. Others appealed to 
me to prepare a book on the subject that I was 
treating. At first I smiled at the suggestion, stat- 
ing that books are now more numerous than 
readers. However, after frequent entreaties, I 
accepted the idea, and began this work. Less 
than seven weeks were occupied in the prepara- 

3 



4 Preface. 

tion of these lectures, and during that brief period 
I was necessitated to consult more than fifty 
authors, besides the time spent in the discharge 
of my parochial duties. In criticising this book, I 
hope that my readers will remember that it con- 
tains nothing more than the fugitive thoughts of 
a tyro, expressed in the language of the moment. 

THE AUTHOR. 



CONTENTS 



Lecture I. pAGE 

Religion in Relation to Civil and Mental Liberty— Persecution — 
Influence of Religion on Law and Morals — Public Schools. . 7 



Lecture II. 

Answer to Query — Ingersoll's Philanthropy and Narrowminded- 
ness 21 

Lecture III. 

Authenticity of the Pentateuch — Internal Evidence— Style — 
Repetitions — Brahmanism and Zoroastrianism Later than 
the Time of Moses 36 

Lecture IV. 

Inspiration— Discrepancies in Bible — Ancient Cosmogonies com- 
pared with Mosaic Cosmogony— Genesis and Science — Com- 
mandments compared with Moral Codes of Ancient Nations . 48 

Lecture V. 

Answer to Query — Brahman Triad — Existence of God — Matter 

and Mind — Miracles — Manna 77 

Lecture VI. 

Answer to Query — Necessity of Miracles for the Establishment 
of Divine Truth — Contradictions in the Account of Creation, 
Rainbow, Tower of Babel, Sacrifices, Sinai, Palestine 101 

Lecture VII. 

Answer to Query — Slaughter of Animals— Resurrection of Ani- 
mals — Classification of Animals — Art— Patterns -Tongs- 
Gold for Tabernacle — Deluge 121 

5 



6 Contents-. 

Lecture VIII. 

PAGE. 

Stopping of the Sun— Evolution— Age of World and Man — Po- 
lygamy — Apostasy — Religious liberty — Murder 139 

Lecture IX. 
Immortality of the Soul 162 

Lecture X. 

Slavery — Sympathy in Heaven — Atonement — Changes in Bible — 
Philanthropy of the Apostles and Christian Missionaries. . . 181 

Lecture XI. 

More about Polygamy — Hair-oil — Grace — Salvation — Damna- 
tion—Charity 207 

Lecture XII. 

Men of Science and Letters — Heresy and Orthodoxy — Charity of 
the Present and Past Ages — Dignity of Woman protected by 
Christians and degraded by Atheists — The Atheists of 
France 227 

Lecture XIII. 

Bible compared with Koran and Vedas, etc. — Female Honor ac- 
cording to Christians and Atheists — Women of Israel — Jeph- 
thah's Daughter — Slaves — Servants — Masters 252 

Lecture XIV. 

National Wealth and Civilization — Force and Matter — Evidence — 
Witchcraft — Ghosts — Personal and Civil Liberty — Repub- 
lics of the Past — Democracy — Religious Toleration 283 

Lecture XV. 

Enfranchisement of the Jews — Chivalry — Christianity and Char- 
ity — Science — Education— Bible in Vernacular — Spiritual- 
ism 323 



THE MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL 



LECTURE I. 

MR. INGERSOLL has asseverated that religion 
is detrimental to the growth and development of 
civil, national, and individual liberty, the freedom of 
thought and action. 

I hold that religious convictions do not trammel 
the freedom of the government, the laws of the land, or 
the minds of men. Governments have been estab- 
lished for the promotion of temporal and corporal in- 
terest. The scope of religion comprehends the des- 
tiny of the soul, and the existence of a future world, 
and other questions of a spiritual and eternal nature. 
How can the evanescent diminish the imperishable? 
What restraint can the fleeting and transient place on 
the immortal and eternal? What influence, what mag- 
netism, what force can matter engender that will tram- 
mel the immaterial and the spiritual? Why should 
the law persecute a man for believing in the soul's 
eternal durability, and the reality of jasper walls, and 
adamantine gates, and marble halls, and crystal pal- 
aces adorned with sapphire thrones? Why should an 
intelligent being detest a law that does not recognize 
that the universe is filled with the whispers of the dead, 
and the welkin crowned with unseen lands of never- 
fading verdure, refreshed with shady brooks and 
glassy streams, hallowed by the footsteps of God and 
angels? The end and interest of government and law 

7 



8 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

do not interfere with creeds and dreams of worlds that 
flourish in the starry skies. 

There is some reason why a Democrat should dis- 
like a Republican, and why a Republican should dis- 
like a Democrat; for one maintains that the principles 
of the other are detrimental to the interest of the 
country and to every man that lives beneath the 
flag of the empire. But it would be absurd for a 
Democrat in the United States to hate a Republican 
in South America, or for a Republican in the United 
States to detest a Democrat in Canada. It is con- 
sistent to admit that divergent views in the same 
country might generate animosity between the 
phalanxes that assemble in battle array beneath hos- 
tile banners. The advocate of republicanism might 
come in conflict with the defender of monarchy, when 
both live under the shadow of the emblem that pro- 
tects one of these forms of government. Yet there 
is no consistency in the opinion that a Republican in 
America must contemn a Monarchist in Europe. 

If persecution should ever reign, it will be founded 
either on motives of charity or pride. The first can 
never occur. We will premise, for the sake of argu- 
ment, that the Christian Church is in possession of the 
Government of the country; and we will further pre- 
mise that the men at the helm of power are men of 
common sense and broad fellow-feeling, two character- 
istics of human nature that do not altogether depend 
upon religious convictions. We will strengthen the 
illustration by presuming that there is a vast number 
of infidels and atheists in this land. The Christian 
legislator may be actuated by motives of love for his 
fellow-beings to attempt their conversion. What 



Lecture I. 9 

means shall he employ? , In the first place, charity for- 
bids the use of the rack and thumbscrew; and in the 
second place, common sense would teach him that 
a change of mind and heart does not depend upon 
external force. When the quivering flesh is torn by 
red-hot steel and iron, and the lips retract the blas- 
phemies they have uttered, and the tongue swears 
eternal fidelity to the creed of the Nazarene, the soul 
can retreat to its hidden recess where no human eye 
can see the hallowed shrine where it worships, and 
where no human ear can listen to the prayer that it 
offers to the idol of the mind. Charity prohibits 
torture, and good judgment censures the enactment 
of discriminating laws and penal codes for the sup- 
pression of religious freedom. We can suppose that 
a very holy man, influenced by a blind zeal and mis- 
guided by erroneous views, may resort to unjust and 
cruel measures to stem the tide of infidelity and 
atheism. We can suppose that a devotee may love 
God as his own father, and would give vent to his 
feelings in an outburst of indignation when he sees 
a hand uplifted to strike his Creator, and when he 
hears a voice pouring forth a flood of ridicule and 
abuse against the majesty of heaven's King. But these 
are rare exceptions, and I have no respect for the 
breadth of that mind which can not tolerate divergent 
opinions on matters of religious thought, and which 
condemns the sincerity of the heretic and unbeliever. 
Persecution, then, is not the fruit of charity or 
sound judgment. It may sometimes spring from the 
misguided zeal of narrow minds, but this is an excep- 
tion. Usually it is the product of an overweening 
pride, which will not brook contradiction. The super- 



io The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

cilious man regards the formulation of antagonistic 
creeds as an insult to his superior genius. He opines 
that the votaries of other cults question the validity 
of his ideas and the pre-eminence of his mental acu- 
men, and he is ready to sacrifice every competitor on 
the altar of vengeance. Now, we must admit that 
pride is a natural passion of human nature, and 
rankles in the heart of the infidel as well as in the 
heart of the Christian. Since pride is the most potent 
factor of religious intolerance, would there not be as 
much danger in the preponderance of free thought 
and atheism as in the preponderance of religious 
superstition? 

Persecution originates in the disparity of views, 
and is not confined to any particular kind of views. 
Danger of persecution and rebellion and war might 
arise from the irreconcilable opinions of a man about 
law. When James the Second was driven from 
his throne, and William of Orange assumed the reins 
of government, the people of Britain were divided 
between these claimants of the crown. The followers 
of James denounced William as an usurper, and the 
followers of William called James a despot who had 
forfeited his hereditary rights by appropriating the 
sacred and inalienable prerogatives of Parliament. 
History tells us that the question was decided by an 
appeal to arms. The war was the legitimate result 
of the incompatible assumptions on the part of the 
two contending factions. 

Now, if Mr. Ingersoll had lived in those days, 
according to his principles about liberty of thought, 
he would have advocated the annihilation of royalty 
and the demolition of law and government; for these 



Lecture I. n 

were the mooted questions, and these had given birth 
to the carnage of the battlefield. 

Again let us offer another illustration from an 
event taken from the annals of our country, and still 
fresh in the memory of the present generation. In 
1 86 1 the Southern States seceded from the Union, 
claiming the right of extending slavery, and the right 
of State autonomy and independent sovereignty. 

The Federal Government denied these pretensions 
of the South, and vowed that one flag should float 
over the mighty empire of the West, from the frozen 
banks of the St. Lawrence to the golden sands of the 
Mexican Gulf. The neighing of the war-steed was 
heard in our valleys, the rattle of the war-chariot 
echoed among our mountains, the voice of the war- 
god was poured forth in the roar of musketry and the 
belching of cannon. The polished steel glittered in 
the rays of the western sun; the smoke of burning 
cities and reeking homes filled the western skies with 
weird, fantastic shapes, and the wail of sorrow and 
the shriek of agony resounded across this broad con- 
tinent, from the East River to the Golden Gate. Mr. 
Ingersoll rode in the ranks of the Illinois Cavalry, 
and was captured in one of the engagements (prob- 
ably at Shiloh). Why did he not deliver a few tirades 
against the cause of the war? Why did he not ad- 
vise the Nation to extinguish the claims of both par- 
ties, the Federals and the Confederates, holding, as he 
does, that whatever may array man against man, 
should forever be abolished? The Government in 
those days arrayed the South against the North, and 
the North against the South; for the extent of legis- 
lative power, and the meaning of the Constitution, 



12 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

the pillar and ground of our sacred temple of liberty, 
were the points that could not be amicably adjusted 
so as to meet the requirements of all parties. More 
than 600,000 men offered their lives in hecatombs 
upon the altar of right and duty, deeming that they 
were contributing to the weal of the Nation, and be- 
queathing a legacy to unborn generations. As it 
would be absurd to obliterate every vestige of con- 
stitutional, legislative, judicial and executive power, 
because men differ in their interpretation of these 
rights and the legitimacy and extent of these powers, 
so it would be insane to annihilate the vast fabric of 
religion, because minds might possibly disagree in 
their acceptation of inspired truth and the exposition 
of divine revelation, and because these divergencies 
might eventually be prolific of discord and dissension. 
But faith and law, religious convictions and legal 
codes, can never meet in the arena of strife. The 
teachings of the Church can never diminish the voice 
of the Government and belittle the majesty of the 
Nation in the minds of thoughtful people. The Church 
does not conflict with the claims and rights of con- 
gressmen in the halls of the Nation, and the ministry 
is not arrayed against the judiciary. Religion is en- 
tirely distinct from law. They operate in spheres of a 
different nature. Our laws are based on the old Roman 
laws, and the Roman laws were promulgated by men 
who worshiped at the shrine of Jupiter and Mars, 
and sacrificed on the altar of the Pantheon. The 
Christian Church adopted the Roman code, and modi- 
fied it to meet the exigencies of later times and 
changed conditions; and that code has furnished the 
fundamental principles of jurisprudence for every 



Lecture I. 13 

civilized nation on the globe. Yet these nations hold 
diverse religious views and opinions, antagonistic to 
the polytheistic instincts of the pagan jurists who 
evolved this code. If religion and law were incompat- 
ible, why do these modern nations agree in appro- 
priating the corpus juris civilis of a heathen school 
and a heathen age? 

Religion is the handmaid and patroness of law 
and government. Its voice is more comprehensive, 
and it reaches questions that are beyond the scope of 
human legislation. It touches every throb and pulse 
of the human heart, it directs every aspiration of 
the human soul, and shapes every thought of the 
human mind. Law merely takes cognizance of ex- 
ternal acts, but never dares to enter the sacred recesses 
of the soul to weigh her silent reflections and secret 
meditations. The law decrees the death of the mur- 
derer, the incarceration of the robber, and mulcts 
petty offenses with just chastisements; yet the des- 
perado, whose existence is miserable, will imperil his 
life and liberty, and take his chances of escape. He 
looks at his own sad condition, impoverished and de- 
graded, without home and friends, begging bread 
from door to door, rebuked and rebuffed by a cold, 
pitiless world, and he sees the felicity that reigns 
around the fireside of the wealthy banker. He 
machinates the spoliation of the millionaire's gold, 
and he knows that assassination will be an essential 
preliminary to the accomplishment of his sinister de- 
signs. He may possibly recoil from the shadow of 
his crime and fancy that he is haunted by the ghost 
of his victim; but he reads Mr. Ingersoll's lectures, 
and he learns that there are no spirits, and that the 



14 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

shades of the departed are mere phantoms of a dis- 
ordered brain, and that death is nothing more than 
a peaceful slumber. Inspired with these new thoughts, 
he soliloquizes on the consequences of his foul machi- 
nations. "I will plunge/' he says, "the dagger into 
the heart of this inoffensive man; I will take his 
wealth and fly from the land; I will follow the trend 
of the western mountains until I shall have passed 
the equator, and reached the land beneath the gleam 
of the Southern Cross. I will seek some wild, desolate 
spot, far away from the busy haunts of life and the 
homes of civilized man, and I will build a castle amidst 
the gray rocks, where none but the foot of the hunted 
stag has ever trodden, where the howl of the wolf 
and the cry of the panther and the bark of the hyena 
are the only sounds that break the awful silence 
brooding over these lonely dells and lofty crags, con- 
secrated by the breath of time, and hallowed by the 
touch of ages. The agent of the law will never find 
me in those distant regions, in that secluded spot. 
However, should the sleuth-hound of justice follow 
my steps and discover my face amidst nature's stately 
peaks, and my life be sacrificed on the scaffold in 
retribution for the blood of a fellow-being, I will go 
down into the somber shades of death, where sorrow 
is a stranger. My flesh shall return to ashes, and be 
carried far and wide by the careering winds of heaven 
until they commingle with the mountain dust. I 
would rather seek refuge from life's toilsome burdens 
in the darkness of the tomb, where I will be identified 
with the atoms of the earth, and bloom again in the 
lilies of the valley and the flowers of the lawn, and the 
leafy bower and the umbrageous grove, that affords 



Lecture I. 15 

rest to the weary traveler and exhausted beast: I 
would rather end my days of labor upon the grewsome 
gallows, amidst the scorn of the populace, which will 
terminate with the flight of the moments: I would 
rather die in the prime of manhood, than to struggle 
through the long years, the child of poverty and re- 
proach, of woe and desolation. There is no God in 
those azure skies, and the soul's immortality is a 
dream of an ignorant age and a priest-ridden people. 
Mr. Ingersoll, the world's renowned agnostic, has 
taught me that future worlds are idle fancies, the 
creation of darkness and error, and unworthy of in- 
telligent thought." 

How different is this chain of reasoning, and how 
different these conclusions from the philosophy of the 
Christian soul! "I will never," argues the disciple of 
the Galilean, "I will never imbrue my hands in the 
blood of a fellow-man, for the Bible informs me that 
every son of Adam is my brother. The Bible informs 
me that the Jew and Gentile, Greek and barbarian, 
bond and free, are united in one family, and are chil- 
dren of the same household. The Bible informs me 
that Christ established the Fatherhood of God and the 
brotherhood of man; that he who hateth his brother 
is a murderer, and that no murderer shall enter into 
the kingdom of heaven. The Bible avers that 'if thou 
offerest thy gift at the altar, and there thou remem- 
berest that thy brother hath anything against thee, go 
first and be reconciled to thy brother; then coming 
thou shalt offer up thy gift.' The Bible informs me that 
I must love my enemies and do good to them that hate 
me. The Bible inculcates the necessity of eradicating 
envy and jealousy from the heart, forbids lying, de- 



1 6 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

traction and calumny, and warns us to cherish an 
affection for all men, under the pain of eternal banish- 
ment from realms of light and bliss. I may com- 
mit a thousand deeds that are ignored by the law, 
and a thousand more that might be forever unknown, 
yet the inspired volume tells me that beyond those 
specks that glimmer in the distant regions of space, 
there is a Potentate whose throne is established in 
purple fields of glory, whose footstool is the earth, 
whose thoughts are from age to age, and to whom a 
thousand years are as yesterday. The Holy Scripture 
says that the Ruler of the universe is cognizant of all 
the acts that have enhanced or tarnished the glory 
of creation; that he is familiar with every thought 
that has nestled in the human brain, with every 
aspiration of the human soul and every sigh of the 
human heart; that he is higher than heaven, deeper 
than hell, longer than the earth, and broader than the 
sea; that his eyes are brighter than the sun, looking 
into the minds of men, into the most sacred parts; 
that his breath pervades all places, and that the uni- 
verse is enveloped in the majesty of his being. The 
sacred record informs me that wherever I go, his 
divine countenance will rest upon me and the light 
of his eyes will discern my crime. The oracle of 
truth speaks to me with unfaltering voice, that my 
soul was created for eternal felicity, and that if I 
be a faithful servant, I shall dwell forever in realms Of 
glory; that I shall possess a reward that shall never 
cease, a kingdom that shall never perish, bliss that 
shall never vanish, joys that shall never wane, pleas- 
ures that shall never fade, and delights that shall flow 
from an eternal fountain. The inspired angel de- 



Lecture I. 17 

scribes the glorious city of destiny, which is built 
upon the eternal hills, whose light is like a jasper 
stone, with three golden' gates on the east, three on 
the west, three on the north, and three on the 
south; with walls set with sapphire and chalcedony, 
emerald and chrysolite, topaz and amethyst; where 
there is no temple, for the Almighty himself is the 
temple thereof; where the river of life, clear as 
crystal, flows from the great white throne ; where there 
is no sun or moon to shine in it, for the glory of God 
hath enlightened it, and the lamb is the lamp thereof; 
and the gates shall not be shut by day, for there will 
be no night there. Now, the Bible offers me this 
reward if I be loyal to the tenets of religion, and 
warns me against transgression, with the terrible men- 
ace that the rebellious soul shall be cast out into 
exterior darkness, where there is weeping and gnash- 
ing of teeth." Since the voice of religion touches 
every throb and sigh of humanity; since it sweeps 
all the paths and roads, all the heights and depths, and 
all the waves and floods of passion; since it enforces 
its precepts with the noblest rewards and the severest 
chastisements; and since every decree of religion ac- 
cords with every provision of the law, it is evident 
that the legislative hall, the judicial bench, the execu- 
tive mansion, the majesty of right, the sanctity of 
justice and temple of freedom, are founded and rest 
in security upon the rock of religious faith. Demolish 
the altar and desecrate the shrine, and the Goddess 
of Liberty will wing her flight to other climes, and 
stretch out her wings to protect other lands, and send 
forth her smiles to gladden the hearts of other 
peoples. 



1 8 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

Mr. Ingersoll maintains that religion is detri- 
mental to the schools, and he wants our schools to 
be free. 

Religion does not fetter our schools. When there 
is only one religion in the land, and every citizen 
professes his adherence to that creed — as in Spain — 
then religious education is in consonance with the 
wishes of the people, and therefore is not opposed 
to the free thought of the nation, or inimical to the 
liberty of the individual. Nothing can be discordant 
*with the human mind which accords with the drift 
and trend of human thought. Universality of re- 
ligious persuasion is in harmony with the institution 
of religious instruction in the public schools. There 
spiritual and secular learning may fraternize; there 
one is the complement and auxiliary of the other. 
When there are many sects, the Government elimi- 
nates the Catechism and the Bible from the public 
schools. W r e have an illustration of this in the public 
schools of the United States, where the tenets of no 
denomination are inculcated, and the voters are will- 
ing to sacrifice their personal interest upon the altar 
of the common weal. When there are two Churches, 
provisions can be made to meet the wants and de- 
mands of both parties. Austria is a Roman Catholic 
country, and the Government sustains the schools, 
which are agencies for the impartation of secular 
and religious training. But the law also recognizes 
the claims of the Lutherans, and schools have been 
erected and are supported by the public funds, where 
their doctrines are taught in connection with other 
branches of erudition. I have been informed that 
similar arrangements have been made in Scotland 



Lecture I. 19 

and Ireland. Although no religion is taught during 
the school hours, yet in some places they are under 
the control of the different denominations, and the 
Catechism and Bible can be taught in those schools 
after the exercises of the day. 

Mr. Ingersoll wants the professors free, so that 
when they find in science a fact inconsistent with the 
Bible, they may not be forced to hide that fact. 

Either there is a God, or there is not a God. If the 
latter be true, then every sincere and honest man in 
the world desires to be apprised of that truth. No 
man wishes to be a dupe, and no intelligent being 
can voluntarily submit to a severe code of laws that 
add nothing to his worldly aggrandizement, unless 
that code of laws be authenticated and promulgated. 
Now, if there be no Supreme Legislator, man has been 
deceived by the shifts of an impostor, and when the 
fallacy of his conception is exposed, he will arise in 
all the might and majesty of his being against the 
imposition. If there be a God, Moses was either his 
agent, or he was not. If the latter hypothesis be cor- 
rect, then every candid inquirer longs for the acqui- 
sition of that knowledge. The discovery of the truth 
and the exposition of the error would be hailed by 
every voter and taxpayer in the land. 

However, when egotistic charlatans palm off their 
fantastic theories for scientific truth; when they sup- 
pose facts that exist nowhere outside of their addled 
brains, and with these visionary ideas, the flowering 
and blooming of a distorted mind, they attempt to de- 
stroy well-founded historical facts, the rock-bed of faith 
and hope, the fountain and source of love and immor- 
tality; when they endeavor to warp unsuspecting child- 



20 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

hood and plastic youth with the dreams of superficial 
empiricism, the legitimate scion of free thought and 
atheism ; when they endeavor to annihilate the faith of 
the rising generation by idle phantoms of speculation, 
parents have a reason to complain and a right to rebel. 
The Government, in that case, would be a cogent 
instrumentality in the demolition of parental tutelage 
and in the embodiment and development of all that 
is disastrous to domestic bliss and comfort. This 
would be accomplished by the means of handsome 
salaries paid by parents whose children are demoral- 
ized by the poisoned spring of atheism. 

Would Mr. Ingersoll give me a salary to preach 
the gospel to< him every Sunday? Would he re- 
munerate me for imparting Christian doctrine to his 
children? How, then, does he expect the voters and 
taxpayers of this country to compensate a sciolist for 
the impartment of myths and fables, which he calls 
knowledge and science? No intellectual man in the 
world is adverse to true science, as true science har- 
monizes with the voice of the Creator. 

If Moses was a messenger of the Most High, then, 
we maintain that there can be no antagonism between 
the Pentateuch, correctly understood, and the latest 
pronunciamentos of true science. Revelation and 
science are both the voice of God. One is a com- 
munication to the human race through the lips of the 
Creator himself, or an agent authorized to speak in 
his name; and the other is the voice of God speaking 
to mankind through the voice of nature. 



LECJURE II. 

QUERY. "Can you not conceive of a time when 
every man shall be a law to himself, when scien- 
tific anarchy shall prevail, when every one will realize 
that an injury to one is an injury to all? And if this 
can enter into the conception of the human mind, is 
not Ingersoll, with all his defects, a man who was 
born a few ages too soon? If he is an enemy to law, 
it may be that the law of to-day hampers free develop- 
ment." 

Answer. In the first place, I never said that 
Ingersoll was an enemy to law. On the contrary, 
I stated that his public utterances would indicate his 
stanch and unswerving advocacy of law and unflinch- 
ing and uncompromising fidelity to order and good 
government; that he regarded the code of our country 
as the acme of human wisdom and justice, and the 
people of this mighty Republic the noblest mortals 
that ever trod the earth, the grandest men that ever 
scaled the heights of human glory. However, I did 
asseverate, and I now reiterate that asseveration, that 
Mr. Ingersoll's principles are subversive of law and 
order, and if one would judge the great agnostic's 
character from his lectures on the "Mistakes of Mo- 
ses," apart from his other public speeches, he would 
undoubtedly come to the conclusion that Mr. Inger- 
soll is an anarchist. His religious principles are in- 
consistent with law and government. He exerts all 
his influence to demolish the instincts of immortality 
and the idea of responsibility in the soul of man. 



22 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

Now, these instincts, as I have proven, are the custo- 
dians of law and order, and he who wishes to destroy 
them must hold himself responsible for the conse- 
quences. Hence, if Mr. Ingersoll were a consistent 
reasoner, he would be necessitated to raise his voice 
against Congress and Senate, against Legislatures and 
judiciaries, against courts and tribunals, against 
governors and presidents, kings and parliaments. It 
is evident that my interrogator is an evolutionist, and 
firmly believes in the ultimate perfection of mankind 
through the agency of growth and the power of de- 
velopment. I want to say that I am not an adversary 
to development, and I have unbounded confidence in 
the vast possibilities of the human soul. The progress 
of the nineteenth century affords an irrefragable argu- 
ment against the doctrine of conservatism. I foresee 
in the dazzling splendor of our age marvelous tri- 
umphs in the unborn future. I foresee revolutions 
and mighty upheavals in every field of thought and 
every sphere of action. Furthermore, I wish to de- 
clare my credence in the principles of evolution to a 
certain degree ; a degree borne out and fortified by the 
conquest of true science ; a degree that does not ignore 
the creative power of God. I wish to controvert no 
truth established by the harmonious testimony of 
Geology, Astronomy, and Palaeontology, When the 
voice of fossiliferous remains sends forth no discordant 
notes, and the deep rock-beds speak with unwavering 
authority ; when the song of the mountains and valleys 
chimes with the tones of the dead found imbedded 
amidst the formations of distant cycles and long 
aeons, I will bow to their decrees and accept their 
fiats. Moreover, I wish to assert that the books of 



Lecture II. 23 

Moses, and the interpretations of some of the ancient 
fathers and many of the scientists of the Christian 
Church to-day, do not absolutely contradict the doc- 
trine of evolution, in a modified sense of the term 
recognizing germinal creation by the hand of Omnip- 
otence. These will form the theme of future dis- 
courses. Having made these explanations, I will now 
proceed to answer the difficulty. 

It may be true that the human mind will progress 
to such an extent as to require no legal restraints for 
the maintenance of order, that every man will become 
a law to himself, that selfish motives will be eradicated 
from the human heart, that every person will strive for 
the aggrandizement of his race and the perfection of 
humanity, that individuality will be lost in the immen- 
sity of the universal, and that every being will volun- 
tarily become an atom in the formation of a vast ag- 
gregate called the whole. This, no doubt, is the 
meaning of the query. But why should scientific 
anarchism follow, or accompany, or precede the attain- 
ment of human perfection? Either mankind will de- 
velop by the means of scientific agencies at work to- 
day, or independent of such means. In the first 
hypothesis, scientific perfection would be essential to 
the preservation and conservation of physical, moral 
and mental perfection, and hence scientific order must 
be maintained. In the latter supposition, I fail to see 
that the attainment of Utopian dreams and the reali- 
zation of Utopian ideas in the human organism, and in 
the development of intellectual faculties, would neces- 
sitate the suspension of natural laws and the suppres- 
sion of scientific research. 

Though I fondly hope in the advancement of the 



24 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

human race, and fain would live to see the ultimate 
triumph of man over all the powers, the final conquest 
of mind over matter, and the sovereignty of the nobler 
instincts of the soul over the grosser appetites of the 
flesh, yet I discern no indication of this grand finale 
in the evidences gleaned from the progress of mankind 
in the history of the past ages. In all the buried cen- 
turies we observe that the birth of civilization has 
been spasmodic, and its growth and extent has been 
partial; that it sprung forth in one part of the world, 
while it declined in another; that, like man himself, 
it has had its infancy, youth, maturity, and decay. The 
Pyramids of Gizeh, Cheops, Chafru, and Menkera; 
the temples of Abydus and Denderah; the ruins of 
Karnak, Luxor, and Medinet Habou, with their mag- 
nificent temples, shrines, stately monuments, and 
colossal statues; the scattered stones and broken 
arches of Edfou, and Esneh, and Kom Ombos; the 
fanes of Ipsanboul and Ramesseum and the silent 
sphinx that ever sits in somber mood amidst the 
shifting sands, and watches the fleeting shadows of 
the Nile, — these and a thousand other testimonials 
speak in unfaltering accents of the lost treasures of 
Egypt, and the refinement, wealth, power, genius, and 
civilization that flourished on her shores more than 
three thousand years ago. It is estimated by an 
archaeologist that a thousand cities have sunk beneath 
the surface of the sandy track lying between the 
mountains and the river. A traveler, speaking of the 
splendor that adorned the capital of the Second Em- 
pire, says that "he doubts whether the London of 
the nineteenth century, with all its wealth and gran- 
deur and magnificence, is equal to Thebes of three 



Lecture II. 25 

thousand years ago, when she was the metropolis of 
the world and the admiration of men of all climes." 
The civilization of the Medes and Persians and Chal- 
deans was equal to the culture of the nation on the 
western side of the Red Sea. The discoveries made 
within the present century have astonished the learned 
world; and antiquarians from all lands are seeking 
the key to hidden lore amidst the moss-covered stones 
and marble slabs and tablets of Nineveh and Babylon. 
If we wish to understand the magnitude of 
ancient empires, the genius of lost peoples and 
buried centuries, let us read their exploits and 
their conquests in the monuments of the past; in 
the solitary ruins and silent tombs, that speak 
more eloquently than the voices of the sirens, that 
pour forth more touching strains than the harp of the 
poet and the lyre of the muse. Let us travel with the 
spirit of the bard to distant lands and speechless ages. 
Let us follow the steps of Volney to Palmyra of the 
desert and the valley of caves and sepulchers, and 
meditate with the author upon the ruins and revolu- 
tions of empires. "The earth is strewn with frag- 
ments of cornices, and capitals, and shafts, and en- 
tablatures, and a countless multitude of superb col- 
umns, stretching beyond the reach of sight. There, 
on these stupendous ruins, once flourished an opulent 
city. There once stood the seat of an empire. These 
places, now so wild and desolate, were once animated 
by a living multitude. These streets, now so solitary, 
were thronged once by a busy crowd. These piles 
of marble were regular squares. These fallen columns 
adorned the majesty of temples. These ruined galler- 
ies surrounded public places. There industry collected 



26 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

the riches of all climes; the purple of Tyre was ex- 
changed for the precious thread of Serica; the soft 
tissues of Cashmere for the sumptuous tapestry of 
Lydia ; the amber of the Baltic for the pearls and per- 
fumes of Arabia; the gold of Ophir for the tin of 
Thule. Syria, now so depopulated, once contained a 
hundred flourishing cities. In all parts were seen 
cultivated fields, and frequented roads, and crowded 
habitations. Ah ! whither have flown those ages of life 
and abundance? Whither have vanished those bril- 
liant creations of human industry? Where are those 
ramparts of Nineveh, those palaces of Persepolis, those 
temples of Baalbec and Jerusalem? Where are those 
fleets of Tyre, those dockyards of Arad, those work- 
shops of Sidon? The palaces of kings have become 
the den of wild beasts; flocks repose in the area 
of the temples, and savage reptiles inhabit the sanc- 
tuary of the gods!" 

Again, let us hear the voice of Bayard Taylor, in 
his realistic picture of Syrian courts and temples, 
whose ruins fill the soul with visions of ancient glory. 
I will select but one illustration from his many mar- 
velous descriptions, the description of the Temple of 
the Sun at Baalbec: "Even the colossal fabrics of 
ancient Egypt dwindle" into insignificance before this 
superb human "masonry. The platform itself, one 
thousand feet long and averaging twenty feet in 
height, suggests a vast mass of stones; but when you 
come to examine the single blocks of which it is com- 
posed, you are crushed with their incredible bulk. 
On the western side is a row of eleven foundation- 
stones, each of which is 32 feet in length, 12 in height, 
and 10 in thickness, forming a wall 352 feet long. 



Lecture II. 27 

But while you are walking on, thinking of the art 
which cut and raised these enormous blocks, you turn 
the southern corner and come upon three stones, 
the united length of which is 187 feet, two of them 
being 62 and the other 63 feet in length. There they 
are, cut with faultless exactness, and so smoothly 
joined to each other that you can not force a cambric 
needle into the crevice. There is one joint so perfect 
that it can only be discovered by the minutest search ; 
it is not even so perceptible as the junction of two 
pieces of paper which have been pasted together. In 
the quarry there still lies a finished block ready for 
transportation, which is 69 feet long. The weight of 
one of these masses has been reckoned at nine thou- 
sand tons, yet they do not form the base of the foun- 
dation, but are raised upon other courses, fifteen feet 
from the ground. It is considered by some antiquari- 
ans that they are of a date greatly anterior to that of 
the temples." (Land of Saracen, p. 169.) 

The shores of the Tigris and Euphrates contain 
perhaps the most magnificent as well as the most an- 
cient landmarks of civilization. Western Asia was the 
birthplace of humanity ; and there the human race was 
rocked in its infancy until it reached the meridian of 
its splendor. There it bloomed, and flourished, and 
spread its wings far and wide, till its achievements 
were seen in every city and town, and the East be- 
came the emporium of all the arts and implements of 
civilized life. From the land of the primeval patri- 
arcEs the wave of progress rolled westward over the 
sands of the desert to the delta of the Nile. It was 
carried by the ships of Tarshish to Greece and Car- 
thage. From Athens it shone over the western gulf 



28 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

till it was seen by the men of Latium, who came to 
walk in its sheen and light their torches in the flame 
of art and science. The city of the Caesars became 
the focus where centered the rays of every star that 
glittered in the broad firmament Of classic literature. 
It moved slowly over the lofty Alpine peaks to the 
land of the Gaul, and eastward, where the children of 
Thuisto drank from the Pierian spring. Again, it 
crossed the burnished waves, and flooded the rocky 
shores of Britain and the vine-clad hills of Caledonia. 
It is true that Ireland enjoyed a civilization anterior 
to this period, but it had been partially destroyed by 
the Danes, who left their homes beneath the gleam of 
the Polar Star to seek empire and fame on the isles 
of the western ocean. 

After a period of four thousand years we look 
back through the misty haze, and see the ruins that 
have been scattered beneath the savage tramp of 
armies and the ruthless march of time. Where are 
the cities of Syria? Where are the triumphs of the 
Phoenicians? Where are the temples and tombs of 
the Pharaohs? Covered with the dust of the silent 
centuries. Where are the Corinthian columns that 
adorned the temples of Greece? Where are the Par- 
thenon, and the Erectheum? Where is the mental 
sheen that once sported with the rippling waves of the 
Bosphorus? Where is Byzantium, the pride of Mar- 
moraine glory of the Eastern Empire, hallowed by the 
memory of a long line of illustrious sovereigns? Where 
are Carthage, Hippo, and Alexandria, once splendid 
cities? Alas! they have withered! They have been 
swept away by the tide of Moslem conquest ; they have 
passed under the domination of the Crescent ; and the 



Lecture II. 29 

wandering Arab now walks with all the pride of a 
Roman amidst the silent monuments of a world that 
has passed away. As it has been in days gone by, so 
it will be in future ages. The world may progress 
until the achievements of the nineteenth century shall 
be regarded as the works of a child, and the thoughts 
of our leading minds may be classified with the 
thoughts of babes; and yet there will be a halt, and a 
pause, and a change, and a fall. Are we superior to 
the ancients? Can this age count a Homer or a 
Virgil, a Horace or a Xenophon? Can this age boast 
of its sculptors and painters? O Pericles! arise from 
thy silent grave, arise like a "god from the tomb of 
ages," and show the splendor of thy reign to the 
egotists of our century! Come forth, Augustus, with 
thy long train of immortals, and dazzle the world 
with the brilliancy of thy era! Awake, Amenophis, 
from thy slumber of thirty centuries and more, and en- 
velop the globe in the sheen of thy noble galaxy! 

I believe with Lord Macaulay, that some traveler 
in distant years, from New Zealand, will take his stand 
on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the 
ruins of St. Paul. I believe that the famed city of 
the British Empire, the metropolis of the world, will 
pass away like Palmyra of the desert, and become 
the den of wild beasts and slimy reptiles. I believe 
that beautiful Edinburgh will decay like the proud 
capital that once stood sentry upon the borders of the 
Tigris. I believe that the roar of the lion will yet 
echo among the ruined columns and deserted streets 
of Paris, and the wolf will feed her young amidst the 
tottering walls of Windsor Castle, and the jackal will 
romp and play among the crumbling towers of New 



30 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

York and Washington. For the last four thousand 
years civilization has followed the path of the sun, 
until it has reached its noontide splendor on the 
shores of the Western Hemisphere; and the history of 
the future will be the history of the past. Night shall 
close the glory of day; the yellow tints of twilight 
shall be followed by the maiden blush of morn. 

Civilization is like the flowing and ebbing of the 
tide; it is like the change of seasons, the periods of 
human life, the history of nations and races. Amidst 
the gloom that shall brood over the trophies of the 
dead, the light of glimmering stars will ever shine in 
the heavens to guard the realm of shadows and sing 
the rise of a newborn day, when intellectual giants 
will tread all the heights and sound all the depths of 
human lore. 

But you tell me that I am judging the progress 
of the future by the standard of a few centuries. You 
tell me that my scope is limited, and I form my opin- 
ions with the knowledge afforded by the rays of his- 
toric light. You tell me that beyond the range of writ- 
ten records there is a land of darkness, called the realm 
of pre-historic existence. You tell me that in the dis- 
tant aeons, far beyond the ocean that hems in our view, 
there was naught but inorganic life. This grew in the 
march of ages to organic life, containing germs of 
animal life, which evolved the lower grades of animal 
organism, succeeded by the higher, until the rational 
species was engendered, and took the shape and form 
of man. You tell me that the intellectual splendor of 
the nineteenth century is the development of cycles 
upon cycles, and on the same principle you conjecture 



Lecture II. 3 1 

for the human species untold magnificence, which 
shall be manifested in the supremacy of spirit over 
matter, of virtue over passion. 

This might be true, and I do not gainsay the 
possibility of this theory ; but I can not prove the ver- 
ity of the premises and conclusions. I stand on the 
shore of a vast continent, and look out over the 
burnished deep, sparkling with the golden tints of the 
setting sun, and a speculator tells me that beyond 
those blue waves there is another continent that ex- 
tends into illimitable zones of light, variegated with 
iridescent shades, and that that country is inhabited 
by a race of giants who are so tall that they must 
stoop to catch the flying clouds. I ask him what evi- 
dence can he produce for this averment? He replies 
that the farther we travel towards the realms of the 
evening skies, the larger the species grow. He tells 
me that back beyond the wilderness there is a race 
of pygmies more insignificant than the Lilliputians, 
and in proof of his declaration he brings me back over 
four thousand miles of plain and highlands, and yet 
we fail to find the race of dwarfs. We reach another 
sheet of water which rolls its crested surge in mad 
fury against the jutting rocks, bidding defiance to the 
ship of the mariner. This liquid expanse has never 
been plowed by the wheel of steamer, and my specu- 
lator has never received any tidings of the world that 
is wrapped in eternal darkness behind the gates of 
"roseate morn." But he maintains that beyond those 
empurpled billows, in a realm that stretches out be- 
neath the skies of the Orient, the race of pygmies 
dwell. He expects me to bend beneath the forest 



32 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

shades and make an act of faith in the existence of 
these two worlds, on no other authority than the 
dreams of his speculative mind. 

I do not totally repudiate the theory of evolution. 
To a certain extent I believe in this doctrine. When 
the school of Darwin can replace the missing links 
and connect the broken chain, I will accept their 
tenets. 

I can not see that Mr. Ingersoll is ahead of his 
age; nor is he the realization of that human perfec- 
tion which is foreign to every selfish motive, and 
worships at the shrine of pure and unadulterated 
philanthropy. The philanthropist is above every 
personal consideration when the weal of humanity is 
imperiled. Is Mr. Ingersoll actuated by such exalted 
principles? Why does he not labor without re- 
muneration? 

Mr. Redpath, in his biography of the famous ag- 
nostic, says that Colonel Ingersoll is not a wealthy 
man, but that he lives like a wealthy man. His in- 
come, according to the same authority, averages about 
fifty thousand dollars per year. To put the figures 
at the very lowest, I am satisfied that he makes twenty- 
five thousand dollars per year by lecturing, and perhaps 
ten thousand dollars more with his atheistic books. 
Would a man, whose heart and soul is wrapped 
up in the aggrandizement of humanity, would a pure 
philathropist dispense the gospel of free thought and 
perfection at the exhorbitant price of one thousand 
dollars a sermon? 

The Colonel told the people of Chicago, that if 
they would publicly express their disbelief in the tenets 
of Christianity, they would be dismissed by their 



Lecture II. 33 

employers. In the first place, he knows that a man 
of common sense, especially here in America, would 
not discharge an employee on account of his religious 
convictions. But is there not some motive behind 
that advice? Yes; for he says, Keep quiet, do n't say 
a word, but give me your money, and I will do your 
talking for you. He says that Moses did not want 
any opposition in the miracle business, and it seems 
that Ingersoll does not want any opposition in the 
lecture trade. Is that true philanthropy? 

I get a salary of six hundred dollars a year ; and yet 
the Colonel calls me an "impostor," because I take 
enough compensation to buy bread and clothes for 
the labor that I expend in my efforts to prevent crime. 
He exacts twenty-five thousand dollars a year for 
opening the floodgates of iniquity, by removing all 
barriers and destroying the law of responsibility. Yet 
he poses as the angel of love, who has come to redeem 
the world. While I speak, there arises in my vision 
the form of a young priest leaving his native hills, 
washed by the billows of the Northern Ocean. He 
bids good-bye to the friends of his youth and the com- 
panions of his school-days; he tears himself from the 
last fond embrace of a loving mother and hoary- 
haired father. He bends to receive the farewell kiss 
of brother and sister. The ship is moving from the 
wharf, and he stands on the deck, and gazes into the 
streaming eyes of loved ones, whose hearts are break- 
ing. He sails over thousands of leagues, and finally 
lands on the island of Molakai, where he devotes his 
life to the care of lepers. By a stroke of his will he 
has erected an everlasting and insurmountable barrier 
between himself and the joys and hopes and pleasures 



34 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

of civilized life and refined associations. He buries 
the ' remembrance of happy days in his unremitting 
efforts to alleviate the miseries of the plague-stricken 
people, until he becomes a victim of the loathsome 
contagion. Still he labors on, regardless of pain and 
sorrow, till the flesh falls piecemeal from his bones, 
and he sinks into the arms of death. 

Again, another vision arises before me. It is a 
corpulent old gentleman, reposing upon the couch of 
comfort, surrounded by wife and children, . and all the 
endearments of home and friends, all the luxuries of 
body and mind, pouring forth fierce diatribes against 
the leper-priest at a thousand dollars a diatribe. 
Raising his voice to the highest pitch, clothing his 
thoughts with gems of poetry and jewels of eloquence, 
robing his face with every expression of scorn, hatred, 
and derision, the ruthless agnostic denounces Father 
Damien as a hypocrite and impostor for whispering 
words of love and comfort into the ears of the 
wretched victims of a dreadful malady. Which one is 
the philanthropist, and which one is the misanthropist? 
I leave the decision of this question to the unbiased 
verdict of my audience. 

No man should address the public on any question 
until he is thoroughly informed, and historical mis- 
statements are strong indications of dishonesty. A 
man who can not see but one side of any question is 
undoubtedly a narrow-minded man. And a man who 
draws general conclusions from particular premises 
does not (in the words of Herbert, in his history of the 
Rebellion, when speaking of the incompetency of 
generals) know any more about logic than a "goose 
kno'w'g of grammar." That Mr. Ingersoll is wanting 



Lecture II. 35 

in probity, that he is mendacious, that he can never 
see any plausibility in the views of his opponents, that 
he distorts and fabricates history to accomplish his 
venal purposes, that he condemns a community, or 
party, or creed for the shortcomings and faults of a 
few, that his utterances are filled with hatred, scorn 
and malice, must be evident to those who have fol- 
lowed his public career for the last quarter of a cen- 
tury. That he is narrow-minded, illogical, and un- 
truthful, I will refer my auditors to his political 
speech in Indianapolis, September 21, 1876. When 
you read this speech, I think you will agree with me 
that Ingersoll is a one-sided man, that his little mind 
is warped by prejudices, that he has no idea of justice, 
and, if he had the power, that he would be a tyrant of 
the darkest type. 



LECTURE III. 

INGERSOLL says that "The Pentateuch was written 
hundreds of years before the time of Moses." 
The Bible was a most sacred document among the 
Jews. It was the foundation of their national exist- 
ence. It contained their constitution and their laws 
and the history of their origin, their migrations, their 
enslavement and liberation, the triumphs of their he- 
roes, and the conquest of their armies, the establish- 
ment of their government amidst the wild and pred- 
atory hordes that roamed over the desert of Arabia, 
and their final settlement in the Promised Land. This 
inspired document was kept inside the Ark of the 
Covenant, and the Jewish monarch was obliged to 
have a copy of it, and to "read it all the days of his 
life." The people were familiar with its contents, for 
they were constantly reminded of its precepts and in- 
junctions, and during the Feast of Tabernacles, one 
of the great annual festivals of the nation, it was read 
before the multitude. No interpolation of a serious 
nature, or of important magnitude, could have been 
made without the knowledge of the people. As they 
were acquainted with the teachings of Moses, they 
would have detected any doctrine falsely attributed to 
his time. Moreover, as the laws contained in Deuter- 
onomy, and scattered throughout the other books of 
the Pentateuch, were irksome to the Jewish people, 
they would have rebelled against this code of precepts 
if there had been any doubt as to the authenticity of 
the work. The universal acceptation of the Mosaic 

36 



Lecture III. 37 

records is proved by the fact that the children of Abra- 
ham all over the world for more that three thousand 
years, though wandering for nineteen centuries with- 
out a national existence, deprived of king and 
prophet, altar and throne, have tenaciously maintained 
the authenticity of their sacred books. This universal 
credence is the strongest argument that can be pro- 
duced against the charge of forgery. 

Mr. Ingersoll is a lawyer, and can not be ignorant 
of the right of prescription. When a family have 
claimed and enjoyed undisputed possession of a farm 
of land for ten generations, they can not be deprived 
of their rights, until it has been proven beyond the 
least shadow of doubt that they never had a legiti- 
mate title. The burden of proof falls upon the new 
claimant, and the original owners can not be molested, 
until his pretensions are confirmed by indisputable 
facts and incontestable arguments. Now, the Jews 
have held the Pentateuch in the greatest veneration 
as the authentic record of events that occurred in 
the days of Moses, and written by the hand of the 
lawgiver himself. They have held these books, not 
for ten, but for a hundred generations. The testimony 
of the Jewish nation is fortified by the universal belief 
of the Christian world, and still further corroborated 
by the acknowledgment of the oldest and most reliable 
historians belonging to the different nations of the 
pagan world. Manetho in Egypt, Strabo in Greece, 
Diodorus the Sicilian, and Tacitus the Roman speak 
of Moses by name in their allusions to the sacred 
books of the Jews. 

Why do we believe that the Federalist was 
written by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay? Why do we 



38 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

believe Columbus discovered America in 1492? Be- 
cause the concurrent voice of history and tradition 
asserts these facts. Why do we believe that Luther 
originated the Reformation? Why do we believe that 
Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the West in 
Rome, on Christmas day, in the year 800? Why do 
We believe that the University of Paris was founded 
in 729? Why do we believe that Charles Martel 
overthrew the Saracens on the field of battle between 
Poitiers and Tours; and that the Gothic dominion in 
Spain was contracted by the treason and apostasy of 
Count Julian? Why do> we believe that Caesar was 
assassinated in the Roman Senate by Brutus, Cassius, 
and their confederates? Why do we believe that 
Catiline conspired to overthrow the Government of 
the Roman people? Why do we believe that Cicero 
delivered the orations that were attributed to him? 
Why do we believe that Demosthenes is the author 
of the Philippics and Olynthiacs? Why do we believe 
that Homer wrote the Iliad and Odyssey, and that 
/Eschylus wrote the Furies and Prometheus Bound? 
Why do we believe that the Ptolemies reigned in 
Egypt, and that Cyrus and Cambyses ruled in Persia? 
Why do we give credence to these and a thousand 
other facts that fill the immortal page of history? 
Because these acts were accomplished, and these facts 
occurred in the lifetime of men who could have con- 
tradicted these statements, if they had been tinged 
with error and falsehood. They were transmitted 
intact to the next generation, and so they have come 
down to us over the wide gulf of ages, sanctioned 
and sustained by the harmonious voice of history and 
tradition. The authenticity of the Pentateuch is 



Lecture III. 39 

clothed with the same authority, supported by the 
same voice, and hallowed by the reverence of three 
thousand years, and, therefore, its authenticity is cor- 
roborated and secured by the law of prescription. 

It is true that Biblical critics, from a scientific 
standpoint, have differed in their views about the 
authenticity of these ancient books. Those who 
maintain a later origin for the work aver that there 
are some passages that could not, with truth, have 
been written at that time. The thirty-first verse of 
the thirty-sixth chapter of Genesis relates that "the 
kings that ruled in the land of Edom before the 
children of Israel had a king, were these." The force 
of this passage evidently shows that there were kings 
in Israel before this text was written. Now, Saul 
was the first king in Israel, and he lived four hundred 
years after the date of Genesis. Justly, therefore, do 
Biblical scholars contend that the passage quoted was 
never written by Moses. But the difficulty is easily 
solved. Moses kept a diary of the events of his time, 
recording all the facts that occurred in his day, to- 
gether with a history of his race, partly preserved by 
the voice of tradition, and supplemented perhaps by 
divine inspiration. This diary was digested and 
redacted, first by Josue and the seventy elders, and 
later by Ezra. In making a redaction of the events 
written by the great legislator, the compilers would 
make notes and comments. The first Bibles were 
not divided into chapters and verses, and the original 
footnotes and annotations, such as the text quoted, 
and the constantly recurring phrase "to this day" (and 
the last chapter of Deuteronomy, which was ap- 
pended by Josue, the first redactor), these and similar 



4o The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

texts and parts written as comments, were afterwards 
incorporated in the sacred volume. The thirty-fourth 
chapter and first verse of Deuteronomy can be ex- 
plained in the same way. The thirty-fourth verse 
and the thirty-second chapter of Numbers, together 
with the sixteenth to the thirty-fifth Exodus, can be 
easily explained. There it is said that the "sons of 
Gad built Dibou," etc. These passages present no 
anachronism; for Reuben, Gad, and half of the tribe 
of Manasseh had already acquired possessions on the 
eastern shores of the Jordan before the rest of the 
people had passed to Canaan. 

Many eminent critics, and among them Cornelius 
a Lapide, in elucidation of texts that call for a later 
authorship, offer the complementary theory, or the 
theory already suggested, that such passages were 
appended by the redactors of a subsequent date. 
Eichhorn and Rosenmuller, although rationalists^ and 
Hengstenberg and his school, maintain the integrity 
of the Pentateuch with all the difficulties presented. 
Delitzsch, Schultz, Kurtz, and other scholars of note, 
accept the genuineness of Deuteronomy. But 
Deuteronomy speaks of the second, third, and fourth 
books; and Genesis is an introduction to these books; 
therefore, they are necessitated to admit the genuine- 
ness of the other four books. The moderate school 
of England maintains that Moses wrote the entire 
book of Deuteronomy, and large parts of the remain- 
ing four books. 

It is also admitted that there are many repetitions 
and slight discrepancies in some of the statements; 
but these objections present no grave embarrassment 
to the Biblical critic. Moses was eighty years of age 



Lecture III. 41 

when he entered the wilderness, and he lived through 
'the most stirring scenes in the history of the chosen 
people, and we can easily understand these redundan- 
cies and unimportant contradictions. He would, no 
doubt, reiterate his injunctions and ordinances either 
through forgetfulness, or for the sake of emphasis. 
In nearly every letter that Lord Chesterfield wrote to 
his son, he speaks of the Graces; "the Graces, the 
Graces, do n't forget the Graces." Could not Moses 
have been actuated by the same motive, that is, to 
impress indelibly upon the minds of the chosen 
people that they must not forget their God? 

Again, they say there is a difference in the style 
found throughout these books. In souie places Moses 
calls the Creator Jehovah, and in other places he 
uses the term Elohim. The first of these expressions 
corresponds with Almighty, Allwise, and the second 
designates the Supreme Being without his attributes. 
The same person, living under different conditions, 
might employ a different phraseology in the expres- 
sion of his ideas. Moses, wandering over the trackless 
desert where there was scarcely a tree to afford shade 
for his weary, toilworn comrades; Moses, exasperated, 
chagrined, and discouraged by the repeated murmurs 
from the lips of his people, would naturally be more 
prosaic than Moses coming down from the sacred 
Mount that shone with the glory of the divine beauty 
of God. 

"Great and stirring events," says Henry Giles in his 
biography of Curran, "make orators." Patrick Henry 
before the Virginia House of Burgesses was different 
from Patrick Henry following the peaceful occupation 
of a husbandman. At one time the holy lawgiver 



42 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

might speak of the Creator as the Supreme Being, the 
author of life and existence ; at another time he might 
expatiate on the wisdom and power of God, and couch 
his ideas in language that would convey that meaning. 

But it is contended that the style of the Pentateuch 
resembles the style found in the later books of the 
Ancient Testament. That would not impugn the 
authenticity of the books of Moses. The laws and 
ordinances contained in the Pentateuch were con- 
stantly perused by the children of Israel, and without 
having recourse to other means, we can easily account 
for this similarity of style. If we incessantly peruse 
the works of Dickens, or the works of Scott, we will 
unconsciously imitate the style of Dickens or Scott. 

I will conclude the discussion of this phase of the 
question with a quotation from the pen of Dean 
Milman in his "History of the Jews:" "Who but 
Moses ever possessed such authority as to* enforce 
submission to statutes so severe and uncompromising? 
To what other period can the Hebrew constitution 
be assigned? To that of the Judges, — a time of an- 
archy, warfare, or servitude? To that of the Kings, 
when the Republic had undergone a complete change? 
To any time after Jerusalem became the metropolis, 
when the holy city, the pride and glory of the nation, 
is not even alluded to in the whole law? After 
the building of the Temple, when it is equally silent 
as to any settled or durable edifice? After the separa- 
tion of the kingdoms, when the close bond of brother- 
hood had given place to implacable hostility? Under 
Hilkiah, under Ezra, when a great number of the 
statutes had become a dead letter? The law depended 
on a strict and equitable partition of the land. At 



Lecture III. 43 

a later period it could not have been put into practice 
without the forcible resumption of every individual 
property by the State; the difficulty, or rather the 
impossibility of such a measure may be estimated by 
any reader who is not entirely unacquainted with the 
history of the ancient Republics. In other respects 
the law breathes the air of the desert. Enactments, 
intended for a people of settled habitations and dwell- 
ing in walled cities, are mingled with temporary 
regulations, only suited to the Bedouin encampment 
of a nomad tribe. There can be no doubt that the 
statute-book of Moses, with all his particular enact- 
ments, still exists, and that it recites them in the same 
order, if it may be called order, in which they were 
promulgated." (Page 52.) 

Mr. Ingersoll states that "the Pentateuch has been 
borrowed from the Vedas." In speaking of the cre- 
ation of Adam and Eve (Skulls, p. 6), he says that, 
"I read in another book what appeared to be an 
account of the same transaction; it was written about 
four thousand years before the other (that is Genesis). 
All commentators agree that the one that was writ- 
ten last was the original, and that the one that was 
written first was copied from the one that was 
written last." In his "Mistakes of Moses," page 11, 
he states, "I want you all to know that there was no 
contemporaneous literature at the time the Bible was 
composed; and that the Jews were infinitely ignorant 
in their day and generation; that they were isolated 
by bigotry and wickedness from the rest of the 
world." 

Where was that "book written four thousand years 
before the Bible," if "there was no contemporaneous 



44 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

literature" at that time? How could the Israelites 
borrow from the Vedas, when they "were infinitely 
ignorant, and were isolated from the rest of the 
world by bigotry and wickedness?" Were the Vedas 
written four thousand years before Genesis? All 
critics admit that Genesis was written when the Is- 
raelites were wandering in the desert; and that period, 
according to the testimony of history, was about 
fifteen hundred years before the birth of Christ. 
Bettany, discussing the origin of the sacred books of 
the Brahmans, claims in his "History of the Religions 
of India" (p. 2), that "the best opinions place the 
date of the Rig- Veda somewhere between eight hun- 
dred and twelve hundred years B. C." The Rig- Veda 
is the most ancient of the Vedic books, and since its 
origin is at least two hundred and fifty years later 
than Genesis, how could Moses have borrowed his 
ideas from the Brahmans? In that case the author of 
the Vedas must have written his book 4250 years be- 
fore he was born. 

Moreover, the Pentateuch is older than the sacred 
records of any other people. Milner, in "Religions 
of the World" (p. 535), fixes the date of Buddha's 
death, according to the authority of Abel Remusat, 
in the year 950 B. C. However, Bettany gives him 
a much later period. "Many good authorities," he 
writes, "formerly placed him in the sixth and seventh 
centuries B. C. ; but the latest, and apparently the 
most reliable views, assign him to the fifth century 
B. C., and place his death at about 420 or 400 B. C." 
(Gr. Rel. India, p. 119.) 

The same authority informs us that "almost the 
only means we have of indicating Zoroaster's date, 



Lecture III. 45 

is the fact that when Cyrus reigned, in the sixth cen- 
tury, the Magian religion was firmly established in 
Western Iran. Various conjectures assign him dates 
between iooo and 1400 B. C." (Gr. Rel. India, p. 250.) 
But the Zendavesta was not written for many cen- 
turies after the death of Zoroaster. 

If the author of the Pentateuch had appropriated 
the ideas contained in the Vedic hymns, would not 
these ideas be found in his work? Are there any 
traces of the Brahmanic cosmogony and theology to 
be found on any page of the Genesiae narrative, and 
in the ordinances of Deuteronomy? Moses taught 
the infinitude of a Supreme Being who is the Creator 
of the universe, and who is essentially distinct from 
all other existences, and whose essence is separated 
from the essence of finite being by an eternal line of 
demarkation. Dr. Muir's literal translation of one 
of the Vedic hymns is irreconcilable with the simplic- 
ity of the Genesiae narrative. 

"The one which lay void and wrapped in nothing- 
ness was developed by the power of fervor. Who 
knows, who here can declare, whence has sprung, 
whence, this creation? The gods are subsequent to 
the development of this universe; who, then, knows 
whence it sprung, from what this creation arose, and 
whether any one made it, or not? He who in the 
highest heaven is its ruler, He verily .knows, or even 
He does not know." (Bettany, Gr. India, Rel., p. 6.) 

The following lines from the same source will 
throw light upon the question. ''Fear not to pass the 
guards, the four-eyed brindled dogs, that watch for 
the departed. Return unto thy home, O soul! Thy 
sin and shame leave thou behind on earth! Assume 



46 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

a shining form, thy ancient shape, refined, and from 
all taint set free." (Ibid, p. 16.) 

These quotations demonstrate that the cosmogony 
of the ancient Brahmans was a tissue of absurdities 
and contradictions, placing the almighty creative 
Power in a state of nihility, posterior to the worlds 
which he has made and rules. They also prove that 
pantheism was a dominant feature of their worship, 
and that they adored and apotheosized the powers 
of nature. I might, on the same authorities, state that 
the religions of all Asiatic tribes and peoples differ 
as widely from the Bible as the teachings of the 
Egyptian priests and astronomers differed from the 
tenets of Christian theology and the verdicts of mod- 
ern science; as widely as the mystagogues of Greece 
and Rome differed from the dogmas of the leader 
who conducted the enslaved sons of Abraham from 
Goshen to the burning peaks of Sinai. 

If Mr. Ingersoll has found the name of "Adami 
and Heva" in his mythological works describing the 
creative act of the "Supreme Brahma," could not that 
similarity be explained in a way that would strengthen 
the genuineness and veracity of the Old Testament? 

More than three thousand years ago there dwelt 
a people on the borders of Israel that were famous 
for their naval and maritime powers. The ships of 
Phoenicia had broken the waves on every sea, and 
their sails had fluttered in every breeze. They were 
seen in every port that smiled on the Mediterranean; 
they had passed the Pillars of Hercules and sailed 
over the western oceans, until they reached the isles 
that were regarded by the Romans fifty generations 
later as the Ultima Thule, or the test land in the region 



Lecture III. 47 

of the setting sun. They had doubled the southern 
cape of Africa, passed through the Arabian Gulf, and 
touched the shores of India, where they carried on 
mercantile trade with the natives. Is it not consistent 
to credit the theory that the people who introduced 
letters into Greece, who colonized the northern coast 
of Africa arid furnished the nations of the earth with 
instruments of bronze and iron; is it not credible 
that the people ''who exchanged the purple of Tyre 
for the precious thread of Serica, the soft tissue of 
Cashmere for the sumptuous tapestry of Lydia, the 
amber of the Baltic for the pearls and perfumes of 
Arabia, the gold of Ophir for the tin of Thule," — is 
it not credible that such marvelous people, who were 
the carriers of the world and brought the nations 
together by means of commercial interests; is it not 
credible that these people also familiarized distant 
lands with the religious principles of their neighbors 
in the valleys of Israel, and that the priests of pan- 
theistic and idolatrous cults inserted in their sacred 
records names that are found in the narratives of the 
chosen people? 



LECTURE IV. 

INSPIRATION consists in the fact that God en- 
1 lightens the mind of the author to know the 
truths, and moves his will to write these truths, and 
preserves him from error while writing. The sub- 
stance of revelation consists in mysteries above the 
power of reason to comprehend or to discover, and 
truths which the intellect is incapable of fathoming or 
ascertaining. A person may be inspired by the Holy 
Ghost to write history with which he is familiar, either 
by personal knowledge, or which is conveyed to his 
mind by the voice of tradition. 

The spirit of truth may inspire an author to ap- 
propriate the maxims, aphorisms, proverbs, truisms, 
and apothegms of philosophers; the dictums, laws, and 
sayings of moralists; the statements of historians; the 
conceptions of poets, and the metaphors of orators. 
St. Paul quotes Epimenides in that famous passage 
where the Cretan philosopher calls his countrymen 
"liars, evil beasts, slothful bellies." While these ex- 
pressions were not inspired in their original concep- 
tion, yet, as they contain moral and historical truths 
which can not be altered, God may prompt the sacred 
penman to adopt these thoughts and ideas, and the 
writer, actuated by this divine influence, pours forth 
his soul's conceptions couched in the language of 
profane authors. The vain reasoning of the wicked 
found in the second and fifth chapters of Wisdom, 
the reproaches of Job's friends, and other passages of 
a similar nature, although not inspired thoughts of 

48 



Lecture IV. 49 

those who first uttered them, yet they were written 
b) the spirit of inspiration acting on the mind of the 
sacred author. 

Inspiration extends to truths, to every doctrinal 
and moral fact, and to the substance of every his- 
torical fact. However, it does not comprehend the 
language, style, phraseology, and words, except in 
some cases, where the significance of a statement or 
verity would depend on the choice of terms. It is 
generally claimed by theologians that the sacred his- 
torians and inspired oracles were not blind instru- 
ments in the hands of Omnipotence, but intelligent 
men, using their reason and exercising their judg- 
ment in the selection of language; and that they were 
assisted by the Holy Ghost in these difficulties where 
human frailty would have been unequal to the task, 
and where unaided reason would have failed. The 
author of the "Second Book of Maccabees" tells us 
that he has finished a work whose human character 
is not free from that imperfection which is always and 
everywhere a concomitant of human nature. "If I 
have done my narration well, and as it becometh the 
history, it is what I desired ; but if not perfectly, it must 
be pardoned me, for it is hurtful to drink always wine 
or always water, but pleasant to use sometimes the 
one and sometimes the other; so if the speech be 
always nicely framed, it will not be grateful to the 
readers." (15 — 39 — 40.) 

It is not necessary to maintain that inspiration 
embraces every insignificant fact — which neither 
enhances nor diminishes the value of the truth in- 
culcated. The inspired man may write the descrip- 
tion of a battle between the Jews and Gentiles for 



50 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

the purpose of demonstrating the exercise of Divine 
providence toward the chosen generation. In stat- 
ing that the legions fighting under the standard of 
divinely-appointed warriors were victorious, it would 
not be necessary to give a complete account of mutual 
losses; and a slight inaccuracy, arising from the mis- 
represented views of the author, would not militate 
against the divine inspiration of the historical fact. 
The Church has decided, and commentators of differ- 
ent sects usually agree with the decisions of Rome 
on this point, that the truth intended to be conveyed 
by this fact, together with the fact itself, is inspired; 
but the general opinion of Biblical scholars holds that 
the minute circumstance may not always be comprised 
in the scope of inspiration. 

In the February number, 1884, of the Nineteenth 
Century Review there is an able article on this ques- 
tion by the brilliant pen of Cardinal Newman, in 
which the eminent Churchman writes: "And here I 
am led to inquire whether obiter dicta are conceivable 
in an inspired document. By obiter dicta I also mean 
such statements as we find in the Book of Judith, that 
Nabuchodonosor was king of Nineveh. Now, it is in 
favor of there being such an authoritative obiter dicta, 
not doctrinal, but mere unimportant statements of 
facts. There does not seem any serious difficulty in 
admitting their existence in Scripture. Let it be ob- 
served, its miracles are doctrinal facts, and in no sense 
of the phrase can be considered obiter dicta. The two 
councils, Trent and Vatican, decide that the Scrip- 
tures are inspired throughout, but not inspired by an 
immediately divine act, but through the instrumental- 
ity of inspired men; that they are inspired in all mat- 



Lecture IV. 51 

ters of faith and morals, meaning thereby not only 
theological doctrine, but also the historical and pro- 
phetical narratives which they contain, from Genesis 
to the Acts of the Apostles; and lastly, that, being in- 
spired because written by inspired men, they have a 
human side, which manifests itself in language, style, 
tone of thought,, character, intellectual peculiarities, 
and such infirmities, not sinful, as belong to our nature, 
and which, in important matters, may issue in what 
is called, in doctrinal definitions, an obiter dictum." 

Although the Council of Vatican has declared 
"that the books of the Old and New Testament are 
to be received as sacred and canonical in their integ- 
rity, with all their parts as they are enumerated in 
the decree of the Sacred Council of Trent, and are 
contained in the old Latin edition of the Vulgate;" 
although the Vatican fathers declared the authen- 
ticity of the Vulgate version, yet they did not claim 
that this version is inspired and totally free from 
minor imperfections and inaccuracies. The Old Tes- 
tament was written in Hebrew, with the exception 
of Tobias and Judith and three chapters of the first 
book of Esdras, and portions of Daniel (written in 
Chaldaic), together with Wisdom and Second Macca- 
bees (written in Greek). There were many versions 
of the Ancient Testament, and these, having been made 
by translators belonging to different ages, were not 
preserved from every error. The copyists often made 
mistakes in the significance of terms, owing to their 
imperfect knowledge of the language and the idioms 
of ancient times. Besides, there were no divisions 
of chapters, verses, sentences, phrases, and words; 
and hence it was often difficult to decipher the mean- 



52 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

ing of the original writer. Again, as there was no 
printing-press when the Bible was written, and for 
thousands of years after, the originals were pre- 
served in the chirography of the writer, and fre- 
quently the letters were so badly formed, or grew 
so indistinct in the flight of time, that translators 
and copyists could not always precisely decipher the 
meaning of every word. Moreover, through forget- 
fulness or inattention, a transcriber might omit a 
word, phrase, or clause, add or drop a cipher, and 
thus inadvertently augment or diminish the force of 
expressions, or alter the import of the sacred books 
in matters of less moment. This explanation, which 
is very brief, owing to my limited time, can satisfac- 
torily account for all discrepancies found in the Bible. 
No two translations of Homer's "Iliad" are precisely 
the same in all details, and yet who would say that 
Homer never wrote the "Iliad?" Why, then, should 
we reject the inspiration of the Bible because slight 
discrepancies have crept into it through the fault of 
transcribers and translators? 

In criticising a work, we should weigh seriously 
the motives that actuated the author, and the sub- 
stance of his narrative. It would be the acme of in- 
eptitude to look for a disquisition on ethnology in 
a history of our country's exploration and coloni- 
zation; although many nations and races came to- 
gether and formed this mighty empire; and their 
progenies have coalesced into a vast conglomeration, 
engendering all the characteristics of a distinct 
nationality. It would be preposterous to expect a 
thorough dissertation on the glacial ages in "Amer- 
ica's Wonderland" by Buel; it would be absurd to 



Lecture IV. 53 

seek the causes of climatic mutations in the "Fall 
and Decline of the Roman Empire," although Gibbon 
refers incidentally to some of the active agencies that 
modified the temperature of European countries. 
These works were composed for the accomplishment 
of particular purposes, and are not supposed to dis- 
cuss questions of a nature entirely foreign to these 
objects. 

Let us apply the same criterion to the Bible. It 
was the design of Moses to write an epitome of the 
history of creation, the fall of pristine man, the origin 
of evil, the promise of a redemption, the vocation of 
Abraham, and the annals of the chosen people 
up to his time; to establish a constitution, and to 
promulgate laws; to institute a priesthood, and to 
formulate a ritual containing all the ceremonies con- 
nected with the ancient sacrifices that were enjoined 
in testification of God's supremacy over life and 
death, and man's dependence on, and indebtedness to, 
the Creator, — all commemorative of the atonement 
that would be made by the newborn King of Israel. 
Cosmogony and astronomy were not comprised in his 
design, and he never refers to these sciences, unless 
when he wishes to teach the holy nation that their 
God, unlike the gods of Egypt and Syria, is eternal 
and omnipotent, the creator and preserver of the 
universe. He ever draws the line of demarkation 
between the finite and the infinite, and he constantly 
reminds the people of Israel that the divinized beings 
of pagan mythology and idolatry were the creations 
of a power whose life is not measured by cycles, and 
whose immensity is not circumscribed by worlds. 

Although the inculcation of scientific truth did not 



54 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

lie within the province of the venerable legislator, yet 
his system of astronomy and cosmogony was far in 
advance of his age, and his doctrines have never been 
falsified by the progress of three thousand years. 

That we may place a valuation on the scientific 
acquisition of Moses, let us examine the puerile 
speculations of his age. The erudite Dr. Zahn gives 
us the following account of the scientific theories 
among the ancients. "According to the Sandwich 
Islanders, all was originally a vast ocean. It was 
then that an immense bird deposited on the waters 
an egg, from which arose the Islands of Hawaii. 
But the idea of a world egg is not peculiar to the 
Hawaiians; it obtains among the Polynesians gener- 
ally, and has prevailed among many peoples of the 
Old World as well. We find special prominence given 
to it in the ordinances of Menu, wherein the Hindu 
cosmogony is developed at length. According to the 
Shastras, the earth consists of seven concentric oceans 
and as many continents. They are arranged, in re- 
gard to each other, like the waves produced by 
throwing a pebble into the water. The first ocean is 
filled with salt water, the second with milk, the third 
with curds of milk, the fourth with melted butter, 
the fifth with the juice of sugar-cane, the sixth with 
wine, and the seventh with fresh water. The continent 
at the center of the earth is two hundred and fifty 
thousand miles in diameter. Mt. Menu rises to a 
height of six hundred thousand miles. Homer be- 
lieved that the sun quenched his fires every evening, 
and relighted them every morning, after having im- 
mersed himself in the deep waters of the ocean. 
Thales and the Stoics taught that the earth is spher- 



Lecture IV. 55 

ical, like a ball. Anaximander maintained that it was 
in the form of a stone column. Many fancied it to 
have the form of a cube, and to be attached by its 
four corners to the vault of the firmament. Others, 
and among them Leucippus, imagined it to have the 
shape of a drum. Epicurus, who accepted the 
popular belief, taught that the stars were extinguished 
when they set, and relighted when they rose again. 
Anaximenes maintained that the earth is flat, like a 
table. In accordance with the generally-accepted 
opinion of his age, he taught that the stars were 
fixed like nails in a solid, revolving sphere, which 
was invisible by reason of its transparency. Plato 
regarded the heavenly bodies as animated beings. 
The world, according to him, was but an animal, and 
its spherical form was the type of perfection." (Zahn, 
Bible and Science, p. 24, etc.) 

In contradistinction to these fantastic specula- 
tions, let us examine the inspired record of Moses, 
and place his notion of the origin of matter and life 
in juxtaposition with the latest verdicts of modern 
science. What has science concluded on this ques- 
tion? Putting aside the primordial act of creation, 
science maintains that inorganic existence preceded 
organic; the latter passing through many stages, 
until it evolved the germs of the lowest grades of 
animal life. What does Genesis teach on this subject? 
Of course I speak merely of the order in which its 
different modes of existence were realized, and sep- 
arate this topic entirely from the discussion of the 
evolutionary theory. In the first chapter of Genesis 
we read that, "In the beginning God created heaven 
and earth." He created the matter which composes 



56 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

the heavenly bodies and the globe upon which we 
live. "And the earth was void and empty, and dark- 
ness was upon the face of the deep." Darkness is 
simply an absence of light, and Mr. Ingersoll claims 
that Moses was ignorant of this truth, since he speaks 
of it as something real, and, therefore, he must have 
thought it an entity. Do we not often say that the 
night is dark, darkness has overspread the earth, and 
use other expressions of this nature, which signify the 
absence of light? Moses used the ordinary mode of 
conveying his ideas, and, like other men in similar 
circumstances, followed no philosophical rule. "And 
God said, Let there be light, and light was made." 
According to Quackenbos, "Light is one of the modes 
of force, originating in molecular motion." It is 
supposed, from this definition, that the existence of 
molecules is anterior to the generation of light, and 
the creation of the latter is the primordial and essen- 
tial result of molecular motion. This theory is in 
perfect concord with the inspired record, for the pro- 
duction of light is mentioned immediately after the 
creation of heaven and earth in a chaotic state. 

Mr. Ingersoll contends that the author of the 
Genesiac narrative thought that light and darkness 
could be mixed, when he said "that God divided the 
light from the darkness." But we frequently say that 
it is day, because the sun is above the horizon; and 
that it is night, because darkness has followed the 
setting of the sun. This is the usual mode of dis- 
tinguishing the two parts of that space of time re- 
quired for the revolution of the earth. While we 
express our thoughts in terms identical in significance 
with the words found in Genesis, yet it is far from 



Lecture IV. 57 

our minds to convey the idea that light and darkness 
are compatible. They are separated by the diurnal 
motions of the globe. 

Again, the Colonel adverts to the fact that "the 
branches of the trees laughed into blossoms, and the 
grass ran up the shoulders of the hill, and not a sol- 
itary ray of light had left the eternal quiver of the 
sun; and I do not thing that grass will grow to hurt 
without a gleam of sunlight." 

We have already defined light, and we have seen 
that this mode of force is coeval and coextensive 
with molecular existence, and Moses speaks of this 
force being created the first day. Light was then in 
a chaotic condition, scattered through the universe 
in luminous atoms. There is a molecular affinity, in 
virtue of which the different particles of light as- 
semble in vast spheres, like the sun and the stars. 
This did not occur until the fourth day or period. 
However, there could have been sufficient light 
and heat in the luminous atoms and smaller bodies 
to germinate the plant kingdom, and this statement 
is made by Moses where he claims that the potency 
of these primeval beams was able to produce the 
brightness of day, which is distinctly mentioned in the 
fifth verse. 

"Let there be a firmament made amidst the waters; 
and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God 
made a firmament, and divided the waters that were 
under the firmament from those that were above the 
firmament." 

The firmament is intended to designate the entire 
space between the earth and the highest star, the lower 
part of which divides the waters that are upon the 



58 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

earth, from those that are above, in the clouds. The 
caustic remark about the ignorance of Moses rela- 
tively to the waters of the firmament is very inop- 
portune, since there is not one word in the Penta- 
teuch representing the solidity of the aerial zones. 
"Then God said, Let the waters that are under the 
heavens be gathered together in one place; and let 
dry land appear. And it was so done, and God called 
the dry land earth, and the gathering together of the 
waters he called seas." 

"Let the earth bring forth the green herb," and 
this was the third period, when inorganic existence had 
been prepared by the process of ages for the genera- 
tion of organic life. 

In the fourth period the sun and the moon and 
stars were formed by the accumulation of all luminous 
molecules which had floated in a state of chaos through 
the boundless realms of space. 

Then were born the fishes of the sea, and sub- 
sequently the animals of the earth; and finally this 
grand panorama of creation was consummated in the 
dawn of rational nature and the birth of man, the 
crowning act of God's creative skill. 

J. W. Buel states that "it is now a generally ac- 
cepted theory that, in its most primitive condition, 
the earth was a globe of fire, cast off by centrifugal 
force from some central or larger planet. The 
secondary condition of the world is supposed to have 
been a seething, boiling body, as the intensely-heated 
earth converted the moisture of its envelope into 
great vapors, which arose till those reaching a cold 
medium were condensed, and passed back upon the 
earth in such torrents, as finally cooled the surface of 



Lecture IV. 59 

the globe. Here the waters now found permanent 
lodgment, gradually accumulating and cooling, until 
at length they covered the entire globe so as to form 
one universal sea. These waters, percolating through 
the rents which steam produced, began visibly to 
change the surface by causing violent eruptions that 
threw up vast bodies of land. Life first developed in 
the sea, and was a simple organization, as well as 
diminutive in size. As land gradually emerged from 
the vast expanse of water, new orders of fishes came 
into existence, to be succeeded by more complex 
organizations as the land became more able to sup- 
port such creatures as were adapted to an existence 
both in and out of water. From the simple, flower- 
like protozoans that first appeared in the heated 
waters, there came into being higher orders, as the 
sea grew cooler." (Story of Man, p. 34-39.) See 
'The Living World and Sea and Land.") How nicely 
this theory agrees with the .Genesiac description ! 

I will here read a criticism of the New York 
Herald on a work that has just issued from the press 
under the title of "Genesis and Modern Science." 

"Was the earth created in six days? Is the Bible 
right, and are its critics wrong? Can the conflict 
between the Bible and science be amicably adjusted 
at last? To these queries an affirmative answer is 
given in a striking volume called 'Genesis and Modern 
Science,' which is just from the press. Warren R. 
Perce, a Newport (R. I.) lawyer, is the author of this 
remarkable book. He has been at work on it for 
twenty years, and his explanation of the process of 
creation and its literal agreement with the Bible is 
not only sensational, but has the ring of plausibility. 



60 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

"Mr. Perce interprets the Bible through the sciences 
of geology and astronomy. The theory that the solar 
system was created in six days (not days, however, 
as judged by modern standards) is scientifically 
demonstrated. The Bible, Mr. Perce avers, is not 
a text-book of science. If the first chapter of Gen- 
esis had set forth the creation of the world in full 
detail, with the origin and laws of matter, the consti- 
tution and movements of the sun and planets, such 
statements could not have been understood at that 
time. 

"But the Bible must be consistent with science. 
The Scriptures need not say everything, but all they 
say must be true. Starting with the nebular hypoth- 
esis, that the planets revolving around the sun were, 
in the beginning, rings of flaming matter thrown oft" 
by the sun, Mr. Perce holds that the earth and other 
worlds were formed by the cooling and condensing 
of these rings in the cold atmosphere. The inner part 
cooled first and drew together, leaving the outer mass 
still flaming with incandescent light. This was the 
creation of the first day out of primeval darkness — 
the outcome of the command, 'Let there be light.' 

The Question of Light. 

"This may be said to explain away, in a measure, 
the point urged by some critics: 'How could there be 
light upon the earth before the sun shone upon it, 
which was not until the fourth day, according to the 
Bible?' Science and the Bible are at one here. But 
ages were consumed in this process. How can it 
be called a day? The day could not have signified 
the time between sunrise and sunset, for there was no 



Lecture IV. 61 

sun — no earth in our sense. There were only masses 
of glowing gases. The real definition of day, accord- 
ing to Mr. Perce, must be a period of darkness, fol- 
lowed by a period of cosmic, or solar, light. The first 
day, then, was ages long, succeeding the night of 
chaos. 

"As the mass of earth cooled down, becoming more 
dense, it glowed less and less, some of its substance 
passing from a gaseous to a liquid state, and the 
atmosphere was formed, reaching, doubtless, to the 
moon. Through these vapors the light of the earth 
grew dimmer and dimmer, and at last glowed no more. 
This was the second night. 

"The vapors, cooled by the air, fell in rain, and 
cooled the earth, and then rose by its heat, forming 
clouds. The ocean was then boiling water; but as it 
cooled, steam no longer rose, the waters were divided 
from the waters, there were clouds above, oceans and 
lakes beneath. Then first the sun's rays reached the 
earth, piercing the vapory clouds. This was the sec- 
ond day; and again science and the Bible agree. 

"But now the earth was still cooler, and the inner 
portion having cooled more rapidly than the outer, 
the crust was not evenly supported, and fell in ridges, 
like an apple when the pulp has dried and the skin 
becomes wrinkled. The ocean flowed into the valleys, 
and the mountain tops appeared, just as the Bible 
states: 'Let the dry land appear.' 

"Geology shows which portions of the earth thus 
first appeared. They are authoritatively said to be 
the azoic (without life) rocks which underlie Canada, 
Newfoundland, and similar geological foundations. 
In this way the most solid part of the earth and the 



62 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

heaviest was toward the north, and as it emerged from 
the water, the center of gravity of the earth was 
changed. 

The Earth Swings Around. 

"It had been revolving with its equator perpen- 
dicular to the ecliptic (the path in which the earth 
travels around the sun). It now swung around on 
account of the greater weight at the north, which 
was attracted by the sun, until the equator was co- 
incident with the ecliptic. The consequence of this 
was that the Northern Hemisphere, always turned to 
the sun, would have one unending day, the Southern 
perpetual night. This is precisely the case with the 
moon to-day. The same side of the moon is always 
presented to the earth. 

"Science shows that the Arctic regions were for- 
merly the warmest portion of the earth's surface. 
Their temperature, geologists say, must have been 
tropical. The great coal-beds of Greenland and 
Northumberland prove this, for coal is nothing but 
tropical plants which have decomposed under water. 
Myrtle and tree-ferns flourished in Greenland, and 
water-lilies floated on what are now Arctic lakes. The 
theory that the sun shone upon the Northern Hemi- 
sphere alone is said to be the only explanation of the 
formation of coal in the north, and its absence from 
the land south of the equator. The third day, then, 
corresponds to what the geologists call the Paleozoic 
Age, which was one long day for the Northern Hemi- 
sphere, where vegetable life, as spoken of on this day 
in the Bible, was created in great luxuriance. 

"And now comes one of the most startling of Mr. 



Lecture IV. 63 

Perce's theories. This third day, he claims, might 
have continued forever, if the earth had not again 
changed its position relative to the ecliptic. But 
just as it had swung round at the close of the second 
day, so again a change took place, though due to a 
different cause. The south, being in perpetual 
night, and so far from the sun, was soon covered 
with ice. As this ice grew thicker and heavier, the 
sun drew the great weight toward itself, and the 
earth's angle changed to that of our time. 

'Then first was there a variation of seasons as 
recorded of the fourth day in the Bible, and the stars 
and sun began to play their part upon the whole 
earth. Mr. Perce calls attention to the fact that here 
the Hebrew Bible uses the word for making or ap- 
pearing, not creating. Geology, it would appear, also 
supports this view, showing that some great change 
took place at the close of the Paleozoic Age. 

"With the Mesozoic Age came the fifth and 
sixth days. The author frankly confesses that ge- 
ologists find fish long before this; but he states that 
the Bible does not mention marine plants, and the 
word translated 'great whales' must refer to the great 
reptiles, the ichthyosaurus and plesiosaurus. Then 
geology would agree with the Bible, that birds and 
these reptiles belong to the fifth stage of creation. 
Geology confirms the Bible also' by declaring the 
creation of mammals last in order before man. 

As to Animal Creation. 

"Both the Bible and geology distinctly affirm the 
separate creations of each species of animals, and 
disprove the theory that the higher order of animals, 



64 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

including man himself, have been developed from the 
lower forms. If it were true that one order, or genus, 
was developed into another, the book asserts, we 
ought to find somewhere in the rocks specimens of 
the intermediate forms which linked the old with the 
new; but such is not the case. 

"The Scriptural history of creation is one of phe- 
nomena, not causes or processes. It remains for 
science to step in as the interpreter, filling out blank 
spaces in accord with the Bible. The tendency among 
geologists is greatly to shorten geological time, among 
theologians to lengthen their estimates of man's ex- 
istence on earth. It would not be at all strange if 
all agreed that Adam was created about fifteen thou- 
sand years ago, and what has been called pre-historic 
man is really a descendant of Adam. 

"Mr. Perce's theories are certainly startling, and 
the mass of scientific support and authority which he 
has called to his aid, is overpowering. His book 
should arouse no end of discussion." (New York 
Herald, Nov. 28, 1897.) 

In conclusion, I will place science and the Bible 
side by side. Science teaches, first, that water for- 
merly covered the globe; second, this was succeeded 
by the appearance of land, which, in its infancy, could 
only produce the simplest form of vegetable life, fol- 
lowed by the higher and more complex forms; third, 
that plant existence evolved the lower orders of ir- 
rational life; fourth, this culminated in the formation 
of man. This harmonizes with the cosmogony of Mo- 
ses, according to which there was first water, then 
plants, followed by irrational creation, succeeded by 
man. 



Lecture IV. 65 

I will transcribe a few lines from the pen of Pro- 
fessor Edward Hitchcock, president of Amherst 
College, and an eminent authority on questions of 
geology. Dr. Hitchcock points out the coincidence 
between science and revelation. 

"They agree in representing our present continent 
as formerly covered by the ocean. That they were 
submerged, is one of the best settled principles of ge- 
ology; and that revelation teaches the same, appears 
from Genesis i, 1-9. 

"They agree, second, as to the agents employed 
to produce geological changes on the globe; viz., 
water and -heat. Water is the only agency directly 
named in Genesis; but in Psalm civ, 2, the voice of 
God's thunder may reasonably be understood to refer 
to volcanic agency. This same agency is represented 
as having destroyed the cities of the plains, according 
to Dr. Henderson's translation of Job xxii, 15. 

"Third, they agree in representing the work of 
creation as progressive, after the first production of the 
matter of the universe. 

"They agree, fourth, in the fact that man is among 
the latest animals created to inhabit the globe. 

"They agree, fifth, in the fact that the epoch, when 
the existing races of animals and plants were placed 
on the globe, was comparatively recent." (Elementary 
Geology, p. 290.) 

Yet, after this array of facts, Mr. Ingersoll 
states that Moses was totally ignorant of astronomy, 
and hence he was not an inspired man. The renowned 
agnostic is not a very reliable authority on scientific 
questions; first, because he is not a scientist himself, 
and can not be expected to speak with certitude on 



66 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

subjects with which he is not familiar. In the second 
place, he never gives any reason for his assertions, 
thinking, no doubt, that he enjoys the gift of in- 
fallibility; and thirdly, because his veracity on all other 
topics is very shady. Therefore, the Colonel must 
not be offended if we refuse to accept his naked 
declarations for inspired oracles. 

In our perplexity about the extent of the astronom- 
ical and geological erudition possessed by the author 
of the Pentateuch, we will refer to the verdict of men 
qualified by their attainments to speak with authority 
on these questions. 

Dr. Zahn writes that ''the illustrious scholar Am- 
pere did not hesitate to affirm that either Moses 
possessed as extensive a knowledge of the sciences 
as we now have, or he was inspired. 'The first 
page of the Mosaic account of creation/ declares 
Jean Paul, 'is of greater importance than all the 
ponderous tomes of naturalists and philosophers.' 
Haneberg says that 'the Mosaic idea of creation — 
an idea to which the sages of India, Greece, and Rome 
never attained — is something w r ith which we have 
been familiar from our infancy, and for this reason 
we do not attach the importance we otherwise should 
to the inspired words of Genesis. But if we give but 
a cursory examination to the pagan ideas which pre- 
vailed on the subject of creation among the peoples 
of Egypt, Phoenicia, and Babylon at the time of Mo- 
ses, and even long afterwards, we shall realize the full 
importance of the Mosaic dogma regarding God, the 
world, and man.' The Mosaic cosmogony alone/ 
declares Delitzsch in his commentary on Genesis, 
'proposes to us the idea of creation from nothing, 



Lecture IV. 67 

without eternal matter, and without the intervention 
of any intermediate being or demiurge. Paganism, 
it is true, permits us to catch a glimpse of this idea, 
but it is much obscured. Pagan cosmogonies either 
propose pre-existing matter, that is dualism, or they 
substitute emanation for creation, and then fall into 
pantheism/ Even such a rationalist as Dillman, 
when speaking of the cosmogony of Genesis, is 
forced to confess that it does not contain a single word 
which is unworthy of the thought of God. 'From 
the moment an attempt was made to portray in lan- 
guage intelligible to man the work of creation, it has 
been impossible to outline a picture which is grander 
or more worthy. With reason, then, does one see in 
it a proof of its revealed character; only there where 
God had manifested himself could he be delineated. 
It is the work of the Spirit of Revelation.' Contrast- 
ing the cosmogonies of the ancient pagan world with 
that of Genesis, the illustrious Donoso Cortes truth- 
fully observes that 'in spite of the marked differences, 
they all have this in common, that they exhibit an 
infinite disproportion between the principle, the mean, 
and the end; between the agent, the act, and the 
work; between the Creator, the act, his creation, and 
the creature. In all of them the universe is superior 
in dignity and beauty to the Creator who made it 
by his will, to the agent of which it was the work, 
and to the principle which gave it being. This does 
not surprise us when we consider that the universe 
is the creation of God, while its creator, according to 
all these cosmogonic systems, was a creation of men. 
What wonder, then, if the work of the Creator was 
superior to the work of the creature? Where shall we 



68 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

find man, who, being part of the universe, is able to 
form a conception of God, who is greater than the 
universe, if he be not inspired by God? Who can 
such a one be, if it is not Moses?' The pagan rheto- 
rician, Longinus, declared that 'the legislator of the 
Jews, who was not an ordinary man, having strongly 
conceived the greatness and power of God, expressed 
it in all its dignity at the beginning of his laws in 
these words : 'God said, Let there be light, and it was ; 
Let the earth be made, and the earth was made.' 'From 
the time of Buffon,' wrote Cardinal Wiseman more 
than fifty years ago, 'system rose beside system, 
like the moving pillars of the desert, advancing in 
threatening array; but, like them, they were fabrics 
of sand; and though, in 1806, the French Institute 
could count more than eighty such theories hostile to 
Scripture, not one of them has stood still, or deserves 
to be recorded.' " (Zahn's Bible and Science, p. 30, 
et seq.) 

We see from the authorities of the most eminent 
writers that Moses, as a scientist, has never been sur- 
passed; that he taught all that the science of three 
thousand years has discovered; that he has been 
attacked by the infidels and atheists of this and the 
preceding centuries, but that his system has never 
been subverted, that it has remained intact amidst all 
the revolutions and upheavals of scientific thought 
and research; and the more light is thrown upon the 
study of astronomy and geology, the more men agree 
that the legislator of the Jews was a prodigy of learn- 
ing and wisdom. 

Where did Moses get his information? Not from 
preceding ages, for there are no records to prove that 



Lecture IV. 69 

there was a high state of civilization anterior to his 
day. Again, if we grant the supposition of Baldwin, 
that the Cushites enjoyed a degree of culture previous 
to the origin of the great monarchies whose histories 
shine through the vista of centuries, would not the 
nations of the Tigris and the Nile have borrowed and 
appropriated the works and achievements of this 
primeval stage of progress? Did Moses glean his 
ideas from the ancient tenets of Egyptian astronomy, 
from the dogmatism of the Chaldeans, Phoenicians, 
and Assyrians? He was far in advance of these 
peoples; and there is a wide and irreconcilable dis- 
parity between the teachings of Moses and the sys- 
tems of cosmogony and theology adopted by the 
various nations of the Orient. Since his acquisitions 
were thousands of years beyond his age, we must 
conclude that he was either a marvel of genius and 
a prodigy of wisdom, or that he was inspired. Pre- 
mising the former hypothesis, we can not account 
for his extraordinary knowledge, as he was not in 
possession of means that would enable him to make 
such remarkable progress, and the conclusion is 
forced on our minds that we can only give a satis- 
factory explanation for his scientific acquisitions by 
granting the fact of personal inspiration. However, 
I do not advance this as conclusive evidence for the 
divine character of Genesis; but, to say the least, it 
prepares the mind for the acceptation of other argu- 
ments brought forth for the purpose, and it refutes 
the absurd idea maintained by Mr. Ingersoll, that 
"Moses was ignorant of the natural laws." 

I would like to ask the famous agnostic, how 
Moses acquired his wonderful information about the 



70 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

science of medicine? Does not the medical fraternity 
to-day agree with every statement pertaining to 
various diseases treated in the Pentateuch? Where 
did Moses acquire that knowledge? Again, is not the 
Hebrew constitution the very acme of human justice 
and wisdom? Did ever a nomadic tribe enact such 
just and wise laws? Has the Mosaic code been 
equaled by the legislation of Solon and Lycurgus? 
Has it been surpassed by the most enlightened nations 
of modern times? Are not the laws of all civilized 
nations based on the doctrines of the Pentateuch? 
I will give an extract on this question from the pen 
of the celebrated Chateaubriand. 

"It is a reflection, not a little mortifying to our 
pride, that all the maxims of human wisdom may be 
comprehended in a few pages; and even in those pages 
how many errors may be found! The laws of Minos 
and Lycurgus have remained standing after the fall 
of the nations for which they were designed, only as 
the pyramids of the desert, the immortal palaces of 
dead. 

Laws of the Second Zoroaster. 

Time, boundless and uncreated, is the creator of 
all things. The word was his daughter, who gave 
birth to Ormuzd, the good deity, and Ahriman, the 
god of evil. 

Invoke the celestial bull, the father of grass and 
of man. 

The most meritorious work that a man can per- 
form, is to cultivate his land with care. 

Pray with purity of thought, word, and action. 

Teach thy child at the age of five years the dis- 



Lecture IV. 7 1 

tinction between good and evil. Let the ungrateful 
be punished. 

The child who has thrice disobeyed his father 
shall die. 

The law declares the woman who contracts a 
second marriage to be impure. 

The impostor shall be scourged with rods. 

Despise the liar. 

At the end and the beginning of the year keep a 
festival of ten days. 

Indian Laws. 

The universe is rilled with Vishnu. 

Whatever has been, is he; whatever is, is he; what- 
ever will be, is he. 

Let men be equal. 

Love virtue for its own sake; renounce the fruit 
of thy works. 

Mortal, be wise, and thou shalt be strong as ten 
thousand elephants. 

The soul is God. 

Confess the faults of thy children to the sun and 
to man, and purify thyself in the waters of the 
Ganges. 

Egyptian Laws. 

Cnef, the universal God, is unknown darkness, 
impenetrable obscurity. 

Osiris is the good, and Typhon the evil deity. 

Honor thy parents. 

Follow the profession of thy father. 

Be virtuous; the judges of the lake will, after thy 
death, pass sentence on thy actions. 



72 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

Wash thy body twice each day, and twice each 
night. 

Live upon little. 
Reveal no secrets. 

Laws of Minos. 

Swear not by the gods. 

Young man, examine not the law. 

The law declares him infamous who has no 
friend. 

The adulteress shall be crowned with wool, and 
sold. 

Let your repasts be public, your life frugal, and 
your dances martial. 

(We shall not quote here the laws of Lycurgus, 
because they are partly but a repetition of those of 
Minos.) 

Laws of Solon. 

The son who neglects to bury his father, and he 
who defends him not, shall die. 

The adulterer shall not enter the temples. 

The magistrate who is intoxicated shall drink 
hemlock. 

The cowardly soldier shall be punished with 
death. 

It shall be lawful to kill the citizen who remains 
neutral in civil dissensions. 

Let him who wishes to die acquaint the Archon, 
and die. 

He who is guilty of sacrilege shall suffer death. 

Wife, be the guide of thy blind husband. 

The immoral man shall be disqualified for gov- 
erning. 



Lecture IV. 73 

Primitive Laws of Rome. 
Honor small fortune. 

Let men be both husbandmen and soldiers. 
Keep wine for the aged. 

The husbandman who eats his ox shall be sen- 
tenced to die. 

Laws of the Gauls, or Druids. 

The universe is eternal, the soul immortal. 

Honor nature. 

Defend thy mother, thy country, the earth. 

Admit woman into thy councils. 

Honor the stranger, and set apart his portion out 
of thy harvest. 

The man who has lost his honor shall be buried 
in mud. 

Erect no temples, and commit the history of the 
past to thy memory alone. 

Man, thou art free; own no property. 

Honor the aged; and let not the young bear wit- 
ness against them. 

The brave man shall be rewarded after death, and 
the coward punished. 

Laws of Pythagoras. 

Honor the immortal gods, as established by the 
law. 

Honor thy parents. 

Do that which will not wound thy memory. 

Close not thine eyes to sleep till thou hast thrice 
examined in thy soul the actions of the day. 

Ask thyself: Where have I been? What have I 
done? What ought I to have done? 



74 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

Then, after a holy life, when thy body shall return 
to the elements, thou shalt become immortal and 
incorruptible; thou shalt no longer be liable to death. 

Such is nearly all that has been preserved of the 
so highly-vaunted wisdom of antiquity! Here God is 
represented as profound darkness; doubtless from 
excess of light, like the. dimness that obstructs the 
sight when you endeavor to look at the sun; there 
man who has no friend is declared infamous, a denun- 
ciation which includes all the unfortunates; again, 
suicide is authorized by law; and lastly, some of these 
sages seem totally to forget the existence of a Su- 
preme Being. Moreover, how many vague, inco- 
herent, commonplace ideas are found in most of these 
sentences! The sages of the Portico and of the 
Academy alternately proclaim such contradictory 
maxims, that we may prove from the same book that 
its author believed, and did not believe in God; that 
he acknowledged, and did not acknowledge a pos- 
itive virtue; that liberty is the greatest of blessings, 
and despotism the best of governments. 

If, amid these conflicting sentiments, we were to 
discover a code of moral laws without contradictions, 
without errors, which would remove all doubts and 
teach us what we ought to think of God, and in what 
relation we really stand with men, — if this code were 
delivered with a tone of authority and a simplicity of 
language never before known, — should we not con- 
clude that these laws have emanated from heaven 
alone." (Genius of Christianity, p. 99, et seq.) 

"And this code," says the renowned author, "is 
found in the books of Moses." In contrasting the 



Lecture IV. 75 

Jewish code with the code of various nations, I 
might refer my readers to the immoral practices con- 
nected with the cults of pagan lands, especially the 
shocking indecencies of the Canaanitish tribes and the 
many peoples living in Western Asia. I might also 
call the attention of the candid inquirer to the im- 
modest dances confirmed by the code of Solon, and 
preserved in the ''Lives of Plutarch" (p. 36), and the 
conviction among the Romans that the sky was 
filled with carnal and voluptuous deities, as we learn 
from Josephus in his "Antiquities of the Jews" (part 2, 
p. 74, et seq.) I might expatiate on the horrible custom 
that authorized the nearest relative of a murdered 
victim to take the life of the murderer, without the 
formalities of law, without the assurance of guilt that 
would arise from an examination and from judicial 
proceedings ; I might refer to the sacrifices of innocent 
babes on the altar of Moloch, and the terrible 
abominations of pagan rites and ceremonies, — all of 
which were strenuously prohibited by the regulations 
of the Mosaic code. 

The establishment of cities of refuge was a safe- 
guard against the crime of private revenge that 
prevailed among the nations of the Orient, and is 
still prevalent among many tribes, the lineal descend- 
ants of once mighty peoples. The distinction between 
clean and unclean animals, the prohibition of blood, 
and the laws of purification were strong preservatives 
against the disorders characteristic of tropical coun- 
tries, and were agencies in the mollification of fero- 
cious temperaments. The obliteration of caste, the 
equal distribution of the land, the septennial cancella- 
tion of debts, and liberation of bondsmen, and the re- 



76 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

version of property to the original families in the 
year of the jubilee, were measures well calculated to 
cultivate a spirit of justice and humanity, to prevent 
the growth of landed aristocracies, the development 
of monopolies, plutocracies, and many other evils 
that afflict the governments of our age, and blight the 
happiness and prosperity of modern nations. When 
we carefully, judicially, and impartially weigh all the 
enactments, provisions, and ceremonies of the Mosaic 
code of laws from a legal and moral point of view; 
when we compare the constitution and the decalogue 
of Israel with the customs, habits, laws, rites, and cere- 
monies of Egypt, Chaldea, Phoenicia, Arabia, and the 
small principalities that bordered the land of Canaan 
and lay beyond the Jordan; when we further ex- 
amine the statutes of every nation in the history of the 
world, whether ancient or modern, we must agree 
that Moses was peerless as a legislator, moralist, and 
sanitarian in his own age, and has never been sur- 
passed by the ablest thinkers of all succeding ages. 
"In the light of the brain and heart, in the light 
of the nineteenth century," where is the foundation 
for Mr. Ingersoll's impeachment of the knowledge 
of Moses? 



LECTURE V. 

QUERY. "How do you explain that the Brah- 
mans have three persons in their God, and also 
the Christians?" 

Answer. In speaking of Hinduism, G. T. Bettany 
states that "the idea of gods was fully developed" in 
the Vedic hymns, and "their number seems to have 
been fixed at thirty-three, who are described as all 
great and old. It may be said generally, that in the 
earliest hymns each god that is manifested is, for the 
time being, contemplated as supreme and absolute, 
and not limited by the power of the rest. Max Miiller 
says, 'Each god is to the mind of the suppliant as 
good as all the gods.' While the gods are termed 
immortal, they are mostly not regarded as uncreated 
or self-existent, but are often described as the off- 
spring of heaven and earth." (Gr. Indian Religion, 

p. 4-) 

The Hindu Trinity consists of Brahma, the Creator, 
Vishnu, the Preserver, and Siva, the Destroyer and 
Reproducer. However, this triad is not coeval with 
the birth of Brahmanism, but was developed in after 
ages. Bettany says that "Vishnu is a god compara- 
tively little mentioned in the Rig- Veda, but attaining 
great importance later. He is most characterized of 
old by the three steps by which he strode over the 
world; by his threefold existence as fire on earth, as 
lightning in the atmosphere, and as the sun in the 
sky; or as the sun in his triple positions, rising, cul- 
mination, and setting. Triple power and functions are 

77 



78 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

variously asserted of him, and he is said to assist the 
other gods." (Ibid., p. 15.) 

"Throughout the transition period from Brahman- 
ism to Hinduism varying forms of Krishna, as the 
incarnation of Vishnu, are continually described. He 
appears as the protecting hero, and saint, and sage, 
the overcomer of evil spirits, the popular wonder- 
worker." (Ibid., p. 65.) 

Pantheism is the dominant tenet underlying 
Brahmanism. Brahma is the supreme soul, to 
whom man can be united by thought and re- 
flection, and of whom man becomes a part by 
prayer and purifications. The different gods are 
merely different forms of the supreme source of life. 
It is supposed that the Brahma created Vishnu and 
Siva from his two sides, and that they are but separate 
manifestations of the one being. Some authors 
claim that there is one person and three gods, which 
is represented by a being with one body and three 
heads. During the eighth century, A. D., "a great 
series of Brahman apostles arose simultaneously with 
the decay of Buddhism, beginning with Rumania in 
750, A. D v who revived the old Brahman doctrine of 
a personal god and creator. The doctrine of Sankara, 
just referred to, is that Brahma is the supreme god, 
distinct from the triad, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, who 
are manifestations of him." (Gr. Indian Rel., 

P- 63-65.) 

It is evident from all this that in Brahmanic the- 
ology there is one supreme being who was manifested 
under many forms, but particularly under a triple form. 
The untutored mind apotheosized these manifestations, 
and among the vulgar there arose a threefold divin- 



Lecture V. 79 

ity. This triad of divine essence was never a funda- 
mental tenet of Brahmanism, but merely the deifi- 
cation of ignorant superstition which was unable to 
distinguish between substance and attributes. There 
is just as much plausibility in the supposition that 
Christianity borrowed its Trinity from the Egyptians; 
for, while each city worshiped one God, yet Buel in- 
forms us that ''every town had its triad of gods, the 
third proceeding from the other two, — a belief that 
can not fail to suggest the doctrine of the Trinity. 
'God created his own members, which are the gods,' 
said the priests, and thus out of one god grew a host 
of lesser divinities. Natural objects were thus deified, 
and after a time certain animals came to be regarded 
as emblems, and even the incarnation of the gods. 
The most celebrated triad of gods was Osiris, Isis, and 
Horus." (Story of Man, p. 186.) 

The pagans never drew the distinction between 
the finite and the infinite, and never realized the in- 
divisible and impartible nature of the Divinity, and 
there is absolutely no parallel between their confused 
ideas of deified powers and divine incarnations repre- 
sented under triple forms, and the well-defined con- 
ception of the Triune God of the New Testament. 
Besides, there are many similarities among the divers 
creeds and facts and fables of the Old World, that we 
can not well explain. How do you account for the 
belief that the "Olympus of the Hindus was inhabited 
by gods quite similar to those of the better-known 
Greek?" How do you account for the sacred groves 
of the East and West? How do you account for the 
existence of a story among the Aztecs so like the story 
of David and Uriah? Again, it must "be understood 



80 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

that, while the Trinity was not explicitly taught until 
the time of Christ, yet a plural personality is mentioned 
in the Ancient Testament, where it is said, "Let us 
make, man to our own image and likeness." 
(Genesis i, 26.) 

There is, no doubt, a mystical significance in the 
apparition of the three men that appeared to Abra- 
ham in the vale of Mamre, and it is very probable 
that the patriarch understood that these persons were 
divine beings, for it is said that he gave them ado- 
ration, and addressed them as Lord. (Genesis xviii.) 
When the Almighty appeared to Moses in the wilder- 
ness he said, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of 
Isaac, and the God of Jacob." (Exodus, iii, 6.) Why 
did he repeat the name of God three times in con- 
nection with the names of the three patriarchs? Be- 
cause each of the patriarchs represented one of the 
divine persons. Abraham was a type of the Father, 
because he was the progenitor of the chosen race; 
Isaac on Mount Moriah was a figure of the Son who 
shed his blood on the same spot eighteen hundred 
years later; and, Jacob's name being changed to 
Israel, he gave birth and a name to the only nation 
where salvation was to be found; and in this respect 
he represents the Holy Ghost, who saves the world 
by the grace of sanctification. Again, Isaiah represents 
the cherubim singing "Thrice holy," which has a mys- 
tical sense. We have no reason to discredit the suppo- 
sition that the doctrine of the Trinity was handed down 
by tradition among the patriarchs and prophets, and 
that the idea pervaded the mythological fancies of the 
pagan priests and oracles. 

The blatant agnostic next assures us that "there 



Lecture V. 81 

may be a God, but I don't know anything about 
him." 

Since he professes ignorance on this subject, 
would it not be more prudent, more consistent, more 
honest, more manly, more dignified, to abandon his 
purpose to convert the world to the acceptation of his 
ideas? Is it judicious to expect thoughtful minds to 
believe in a nonentity? And are not Mr. Ingersoll's 
views devoid of entity since they are established on 
no foundations, since they are vagaries of doubt and 
skepticism? Does he not say that the existence of 
a Supreme Being is a possibility? Does he not admit 
thereby that he may be mistaken? And if his the- 
ology be merely a possible theory, he is teaching that* 
which might be false, and consequently something 
that has only an ideal existence. Would it be prudent 
for a patient to follow the advice of a man who has 
no medical pretensions, who says that you may either 
have yellow fever or cholera, and the medicine that 
I prescribe will either "kill or cure," according to the 
nature of your malady? Would not that man be a pro- 
fessional murderer? And would not the patient be rash 
who would follow the advice of such an ignorant 
practitioner? Has any man the right to give arsenic 
for sugar, strychnine for whisky? Eternal life and 
death are far above the importance of temporal life 
and death; the sufferings and joys of an age are para- 
mount to the sufferings and joys of an hour. If there 
be a God, and he has promulgated a law, and has 
enforced submission to that law under pain of eternal 
torture, the man who wittingly incurs the barest pos- 
sibility of engendering in the minds of others a spirit 
of atheism, infidelity, agnosticism, or skepticism, is 



82 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

a thousand times more criminal than the unskilled 
physician who knowingly gives an advice that might 
result in the death of a patient; more criminal than 
a jurist whose thoughtless words or culpable negli- 
gence would ruin the fortune of a client. 

The Colonel says that "he can not conceive the 
creation of matter from nothing;" and I do not think 
that any person would incur the penalty of eternal 
damnation for questioning his infallibility, or for enter- 
taining misgivings about the validity of his con- 
ceptions. 

Nothing can exist without a cause, and the cause 
must either pertain to the essence of the being, or it 
must exist in some other being. If we ask the reason 
why the vales are clad in a carpet of green, and why 
the hills rejoice in a garb of matchless verdure, the 
answer confronts us that the warmth of vernal rays 
has operated on the earth and has caused the seeds to 
germinate, and to gladden the face of nature with 
a wealth of vegetation. We can designate the cause 
that produces the yellow grain and the golden fruit; 
we can designate the cause of tempest and storm, hail 
and snow, frost and dew. Now, I would ask Mr. 
Ingersoll to explain the cause of material existence. 
Does matter contain the cause of its existence? Then 
it must be essential; for the being that which is inde- 
pendent of all other beings does not belong to the 
realm of possibilities. The being that is entirely free 
from dependence on another is eternal and self-exist- 
ent by its nature; for if you suppose its possibility, 
you thereby destroy its self-existent character. 
Therefore, self-existence pertains to its essence. But 
no scientist will maintain that a single atom of matter 



Lecture V. 83 

is essential, since it may or may not be. If one atom 
is not essential, the universe of atoms is not essential; 
for the whole partakes of the nature of the constituent 
parts. Therefore, matter is not essential, and hence 
not self-existent, but must be classified with the world 
of possibilities and contingencies; and the conclusion 
is forced on our minds that matter is created. 

Again, self-existence implies infinitude, for a self- 
existent being contains the cause of its existence, and 
that cause is of the nature of, and is even greater than, 
simple creative power. Creative power can call a be- 
ing into existence at any moment, but always sup- 
poses the existence of the Creator to be prior to the 
object of his creative skill. A self-existent being, on 
the other hand, necessitates the eternal and uncreated 
reality of its existence, and this is the grandest con- 
ception that we can form of the infinite. Is matter 
infinite? Whatever is limited is finite; but matter is 
limited, and, therefore, it is devoid of the simplest 
characteristic of infinitude. In the universe we ob- 
serve the process of creation in myriad forms. Finite 
matter, by its own unaided essence, can not engender 
these multitudinous objects that are realized day after 
day, and year after year. Between entity and non- 
entity there is an infinite space. Millions of nonentities 
added together will never produce an entity, for 
naught multiplied by naught gives naught for a 
product. There is an infinite gulf between nihility and 
reality, and it requires an infinite power to span that 
gulf; and we look in vain for this power in the ma- 
terial world around us. Besides, matter is distinct 
from other modes of existence, and does not contain 
the substance that is found in organic, animal, and 



84 • The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

rational life. A thousand cats will not make a cow, 
and a thousand horses will not make an elephant; for 
these animals are essentially distinct. In like manner 
a thousand rocks will not produce a tree, and a thou- 
sand flowers will not produce a bird. We can not 
account for the various forms of life whose birth is 
coeval with the passage of the moments and the dawn 
of days, unless we premise the existence of an eternal 
cause that operates through the force of matter. 

We must, after weighing the arguments presented 
in this lecture, admit the existence of a Supreme Being 
who is the Creator and Preserver of the universe. 
The world is replete with beings which do not con- 
tain the cause of their existence., and which conse- 
quently depend on some other cause beyond the realm 
of matter, beyond the realm of finite life, beyond the 
bounds of human knowledge; a cause whose exist- 
ence is infinite and unlimited, and whose power and 
majesty are known to -us through the marvelous 
works of His creative skill; and this self-existent, cre- 
ative, infinite, omnipotent cause, is God. 

The essence of a being is eternal. According to 
metaphysics, essence is that which makes a being 
what it is, or designates it as belonging to a particular 
species, separated from all other species of the same 
genus by certain distinctive marks. Man belongs to 
the genus animal, and in that respect he is not differ- 
ent from the horse; but man enjoys the faculty of 
reason, and rationality is the specific difference dis- 
tinguishing man from all other animals. Yet ani- 
mality and rationality must be considered abstractly 
when there is a question of essence; otherwise there 
would be no distinction between individuals of the 



Lecture V. 85 

human family; and hence essence is existence, removed 
from the concrete to the abstract. The essence of man 
is eternal, since it was always an abstract truth that 
man is a rational animal. Where did the essence of 
things exist before their creation? In the infinite be- 
ing that we call God. What is the essence of God? 
To be. That is the essence of a being, without which 
the conception of a being is impossible. But we can 
not conceive of God, unless in a state of existence. 
If he were only a possible being, he would not be 
essential and infinite. 

Again, we can only think of God as an active 
being. God, being infinite, must be perfect; but ac- 
tivity adds perfection to existence; for it is more 
perfect to act than to be quiescent. If we could 
conceive God in a state of quiescence, he would cease 
to be infinite, since he would be reckoned among 
imperfect existences ; and as activity is essential to the 
divine reality, then to act is the essence of God. 
Moreover, God, being perfect, must act in the most 
perfect manner; therefore, we must hold that he is one 
eternal, indivisible act. If we admit a succession of 
acts in God, we are compelled to accept the conclusion 
that God is subject to change, since succession is 
mutation. But mutation is impossible in an infinite 
being; therefore, God is an act, pure and simple. 
A machine that can perform the labor of fifty men 
is more perfect than the machine that can only per- 
form the labor of ten men. A piece of ordnance that 
can destroy an entire army with a single fusillade is 
more perfect than the engine that can only destroy 
one man. A being who can do everything conceiv- 
able with one act is more perfect than the being who 



86 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

requires a multitude of separate acts for the ac- 
complishment of many feats. Since the divine essence 
excludes multiplicity of acts, we are constrained to 
accept the idea that God is one eternal act. 

Therefore, Omnipotence creates the world, rules 
the destiny of the human race, and decides the fate 
of individuals in the last judgment by the same in- 
divisible and eternal act. 

In the divine life there is no succession of events; 
for succession implies change, and change can only 
affect a finite being. As there is no chain of events 
in the life of God, there can be no past or future, but 
only the eternal and immutable present. 

Mr. Ingersoll says that "action could only begin 
with creation," and he can not see how "infinite wis- 
dom could be eternally idle." 

Again, the skeptic manifests inexpressible igno- 
rance of ontology. As the divine essence consists of 
a pure act, He must have been active from eternity. 
God is infinite, and the object of his thought must 
likewise be infinite. Now, there can be but one ob- 
ject worthy of infinite thought, and that is God him- 
self. Eternally God was engaged in contemplating 
his own divine attributes, and the idea of this infinite 
reflection was manifested in the Word, the conception 
of infinite knowledge, embracing all possible essences, 
and comprising all existences. The Word is the Son, 
the second person of the Blessed Trinity, and this is 
why Christians say that "the Son proceedeth from 
the Father." God, contemplating his power, majesty, 
and beauty, as these attributes shone forth in the 
Word, saw that he was good, and therefore he loved 
himself, and this love was divulged in the procession 



Lecture V. 87 

of the Holy Ghost, the third person of the Triune 
Divinity. This explanation will throw some light on 
Mr. Ingersoll's absurd notion of "three gods with 
one head." 

But the atheist declares that these processions 
are nothing more than simple acts, and not beings. 
I will answer the objection by recalling to the minds 
of my audience the fact that the divine essence con- 
sists of a pure act, the highest mode of existence. 
These three acts are distinct in themselves, and yet, 
originating in the same divine intellect, can not be sep- 
arated, and therefore are one. This was God's eternal 
occupation, and this was the only act worthy of in- 
finite power and wisdom. 

The bliss of the predestined will be consummated 
in uniting with the divine intellect in meditating on 
the divine mind, the book which contains all the 
truths, and all the possibilities, and all the beings of 
the universe. 

We have already seen that to be is God's essence. 
To be does not pertain to any genus, and is not lim- 
ited by any differentiation. But being, absolute and 
unqualified, has no limitation, and comprehends all 
beings, concrete and abstract, real and possible, and 
must be infinite. As the divine essence includes all 
other beings, then everything exists in God, and de- 
pends on his will for reality. Therefore, God must be 
the creator of the universe with its myriad forms of 
life. I said that the essence of God is to be, and, again, 
I said the essence of God is to act. And I presume 
that you see the harmony of these two expressions; 
for action implies existence, and, therefore, the divine 
essence is to be active, I wish to call the attention 



88 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

of my hearers to the fact of the existence of a supreme 
standard of morality in the human mind. Why do 
men call* sobriety, chastity, probity, and veracity, 
virtues, and designate their opposites, vices? Why do 
men vie with each other in the practice of virtue and 
the avoidance of vice? They agree that one ennobles, 
and the other debases human nature. Yet, there must 
be a reason why one is said to ennoble, and the other 
to debase. It is evident that we glean the idea of good 
and evil from a standard of morality, and pass our 
verdict on every act according to its agreement or 
disagreement with this standard. Is this standard 
in human nature? That is impossible; for no man can 
be the judge of his own case. The standard, accord- 
ing to which a decision is rendered, must be alien 
to that which is scrutinized and adjudicated. More- 
over, as the lives of men are never entirely free from 
imperfection, no individual is qualified to assume the 
position of universal judge. The most blameless life 
can be surpassed, and we would have the strange in- 
congruity of a man excelling the standard by which 
he is judged, of a superior submitting to the decision 
of an inferior, of a part comprehending the whole. 
As the standard of morality must be perfect, and as 
perfection can not exist in finite creation, we must 
conclude that there is a Supreme Being whose per- 
fections form the criterion of virtue and vice. 

Mr. Ingersoll believes that a man has a right to 
take his own life, and, as a necessary consequence, 
the agnostic's principle secures to every individual 
the right to debauch himself with intemperance, 
gluttony, and every other carnal gratification; 
for, if he has the right to terminate his life, 



Lecture V. 89 

he has the right to select the means of anni- 
hilation and to decide the length of time he wishes 
to employ in his suicidal work. How brutal, 
inhuman, and ignoble is this doctrine, compared with 
Christian theology, which inculcates the necessity of 
prolonging one's life for the purpose of accomplish- 
ing virtuous deeds that will redound to the glory of 
the individual and enhance the weal of the world and 
happiness of mankind in the present generation, and 
encourage and inspire the countless hosts that will 
people the arena of life in the unborn ages! 

Again, the order prevailing in the world demon- 
strates the necessity of an intelligent creator. We 
know from astronomy that the earth is kept in its 
orbit by the efforts of two conflicting forces, called 
the centripetal and centrifugal forces, co-operating with 
the force of inertia. In virtue of inertia a moving 
body will continue at the same velocity forever, if it 
were not acted upon by the force of gravity and fric- 
tion. According to the law of gravitation, every par- 
ticle of matter is attracted by every other particle. 
The earth would move in a straight line were it not 
for the law of gravitation, which draws it to the sun; 
and it would be drawn irresistibly to the center of the 
solar system, were this tendency not counteracted by 
the centrifugal force. In the establishment of the 
unvarying harmony in the movements of the celestial 
orbs there is the strongest indication of infinite wis- 
dom. Can we suppose that senseless matter would 
so fitly adapt itself to all conditions and adjust all its 
motions so as to institute universal accord among the 
heavenly hosts? In that case we would be compelled 
to endow the lifeless spheres with the gift of infinite 



90 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

wisdom, and I presume that no intelligent being 
would be guilty of such insanity. Therefore, we must 
admit that the Potentate of the skies is a being of 
infinite wisdom. I see a watch, and the design of 
that piece of mechanism proves that it had a maker, 
and that the maker was an intelligent being. I do not 
conclude that it had a maker because it is a beautiful 
thing, as Mr. Ingersoll says, but because its essence 
does not contain the reason of its existence, and as 
it can not exist without a cause, I am constrained to 
accept the opinion that it was made. Now, if that 
little instrument gives evidence of an intelligent cause, 
does not the marvelous order of the universe, from 
the highest star to the most minute insect, demon- 
strate that an intelligent power governs these mighty 
legions of created existences? Can a rational being 
gaze upon the brilliant constellations that have rolled 
on for ages, orbit within orbit, and cycle within cycle, 
and yet contend that there is no God? The sun is 
ninety-three millions of miles from the earth, and 
nearly three billions of miles from Neptune, and yet 
the solar system is but one of the thousand systems 
that fill the boundless regions of space. The nearest 
star is twenty billion miles from us. Sirius is so far 
away that its light, traveling at the velocity of one hun- 
dred and eighty-five thousand miles a second, would 
only reach us after twenty-one years, and it would re- 
quire a period of forty-eight years for the rays of the 
North Star to touch the earth upon which we live. Yet 
there are millions of others lying far beyond all con- 
ceivable distances, sending forth their radiant beams 
that wander for ages through the unbroken zones, 
and yet never reach the end of their journey. Can we 



Lecture V. 9 1 

fly on the wings of fancy through those purple fields 
of light, tinged with all the beauty and splendor of 
the prismatic colors; can we weigh those ponderous 
globes that are millions of leagues in diameter, and 
measure the immense distances between them; can 
we see those systems of flaming worlds and dazzling 
constellations moving around a common center with- 
out the least discordant movement; can we listen 
to the celestial harmonies of the wandering stars; 
can we gaze on the "eternal dances of the skies," — 
and yet raise our voices to repudiate the one Eternal 
Being, and to defy the power of nature? 

"I can not conceive of a force aside from matter," 
says Ingersoll, "because force, to be force, must be 
active; and, unless there is matter, there is nothing 
for force to act upon, and consequently it can not be 
active." 

Since he speaks of force in reference to the cre- 
ation of the world, I presume he means by force any 
active principle, and not the forces of the material 
universe, engendered by the relation of material ob- 
jects. As an active principle, force can exist independ- 
ent of matter. Will Mr. Ingersoll claim that the mind 
is matter? Will he assert that every conquest of the 
intellect is the achievement of a material force? If 
there be no distinction between mind and matter, then 
the weightiest man would be the most intelligent for 
he has the largest amount of matter. Does a man 
think with his big toe? Is the amputated limb of 
the physician qualified to discharge the duties of the 
medical profession? Could Mr. Ingersoll cut off his 
arm and send it on a lecturing tour through the 
United States? If that were possible, I think the land 



92 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

would be filled with the declamations of miniature 
agnostics. But perhaps he will say that the power 
of thought is in the brain. Does the brain evaporate 
with the cessation of respiration? And yet the life- 
less corpse, though having every atom of its original 
existence, is incapable of conceiving a single thought. 
Why, then, are all our ideas connected with the brain, 
if it be not an active principle? Simply because the 
brain is the medium of presenting material objects 
to the mind, just as the eye offers pictures to the 
brain. 

The mind of man is the active principle which 
thinks, feels, and reasons. It is the soul which moves 
and animates the body, which gives sight to the eyes 
and hearing to the ears. The soul is the most potent 
force of the universe. It can conquer every law 
of nature and make every force of matter submissive 
to its will. Nature abhors a vacuum, and water 
seeks its level; and, by means of a pump to displace 
the atmosphere, man can overcome both these laws. 

Man has discovered the precious metals that lie 
imbedded in mountain piles of rock, and has separated 
the yellow gold from the dross by the application of 
heat. The mind of man has made the automatic clock 
keep pace with the hands of the sun. The mind of 
man is familiar with the courses of the stars, and can 
predict the events that will cause the obscuration of 
the sun and moon.. The mind of man has utilized 
the force of heat in the expansion of air and the 
formation of vapor, and it has employed the breath of 
the breeze to draw water from the deepest well, and 
to transmute the yellow grain into meal and flour. 
The human intellect has manacled the artillery of the 



Lecture V. 93 

welkin, and engaged it to convey his thoughts 
to the antipodes. The human intellect has utilized the 
force of electricity to speed along ponderous trains, 
and to illuminate the shadows of the night. 

Since the soul, which is a spiritual substance, can 
influence matter, could not God, who is an infinite 
spirit, create matter? Is it not evident that the most 
subtile force is the most potent, as I have demonstrated 
by the illustration of the soul? God being the simplest 
substance in the universe, there is no contradiction 
to natural law to claim that he has the power to operate 
on matter. 

Mr. Ingersoll can not understand the "creation 
of Eve from a rib." He can not comprehend, "how 
Moses changed a rod into a serpent; how the earth 
was covered with water, and how God could enter 
into partnership with snakes." He can not believe 
these things because they are miracles, prodigies, 
extraordinary events. 

A miracle is an exception to the laws of nature in 
a particular case. By the force of gravitation every 
particle of matter attracts every other particle, and, 
on the same principle a stone, forced upward into the 
air by the means of power, will fall to the earth. 
Should it remain suspended in the atmosphere, that 
would be called a miracle. As God is the author of 
nature and natural laws, he can make an exception to 
these laws whenever he has the desire. The governor 
in any one of our States, although he does not enjoy 
the triple office of legislative, judicial, and executive 
power, can commute the sentence of a criminal, or 
pardon a convict who has been condemned by a jury 
acting according to the provisions of legal statutes. 



94 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

This act of clemency does not abrogate the existing 
laws decreeing punishment for crimes of a similar na- 
ture. God, possessing the power to nullify every force 
of nature, to extinguish the effulgence of the noonday 
sun, to withdraw the stars from their orbits, and to 
render the wide realms of space a pathless and way- 
less wilderness, wrapped in the sable robes of eternal 
night ; God, the creator and preserver of matter, force, 
and light, can make an exception to his fiats whenever 
it is agreeable to his will. 

Omnipotence can either perform miracles directly, 
or by the agency of his creatures. The Pentateuch 
relates many miracles that were wrought in behalf 
of the chosen people, and the authenticity of this 
work is secured by the right of prescription. Men 
living in those days saw the starless night that brooded 
over the mountains of Egypt, and enveloped the land 
in the shadows of death. Men living in those days 
saw death reigning in every home, and heard the cry 
of anguish that was articulated by every tongue, and 
the sighs that went forth from every heart, and the 
sorrow that sat amidst the gloom of every fireside. 
Men who marched in the ranks of Israel's fleeing 
columns beheld the waves submitting to the magic 
wand of Moses, and witnessed the sea collecting its 
green billows into gigantic walls, leaving a path in 
the bottom of the deep for the sons of Abraham to 
reach the treeless plains of the wilderness. Men of 
those times saw the destruction of the Egyptian 
hosts in the wrath of the flood; they saw the hard 
rock yielding to the charms of the mystic rod, and 
pouring forth a limpid stream to slake the thirst of 
exhausted legions; they saw the manna that fell 



Lecture V. 95 

from the skies and fed the people in the desert; they 
saw the terrific fire that enshrouded the summit of 
Sinai in the glare of lurid flames; they saw the shin- 
ing pillar that guided the footsteps of the nation for 
forty years ; they saw the walls of a mighty city totter- 
ing and falling with the march of an army and the 
blare of a trumpet. These facts have been conse- 
crated by the reverence of three thousand years, and 
the simple denegation of the skeptic will not destroy 
their reality. If Mr. Ingersoll wishes to dissipate 
the "myths" that have gathered within the "shadows 
of credulity," he must produce the evidence of men 
who lived in that age. Until he can advance the 
statements of eyewitnesses repudiating these facts, 
the miracles of the Bible can not be logically con- 
tested. 

We learn from Josephus, in the "Antiquities of 
the Jews," that Ptolemy Philadelphus wrote to 
Eleazer, the high priest, for a copy of the Scripture, 
and that the author not only complied with the 
wishes of the king, but sent a delegation of seventy- 
two interpreters to translate and explain the mean- 
ing of the Sacred Volume. This version is known as 
the Septuagint, and was kept in the celebrated library 
of Alexandria with all the works that had been col- 
lected by the scholars of Egypt at the various courts 
and seats of lore that adorned the ancient world. 
The history and traditions of the dynasty of the 
Pharaohs were preserved in the same collection. 
The antiquarians, annalists, and historians of those 
days must have been familiar with the claims of 
Moses relating to the plagues of Egypt and the an- 
nihilation of Pharaoh's army in the depths of the 



96 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

Red Sea. If these statements did not tally with the 
traditions and narratives of Egypt, the hundreds of 
erudite scholars that graced the court of Ptolemy 
would have wielded their pens in refutation of these 
legends, myths, and fallacies. What the learned men 
of Alexandria failed to accomplish with all the liter- 
ature in their possession, Mr. Ingersoll wishes to 
achieve with unwarranted declarations. 

The famous agnostic says: "Why did not God 
reason with Pharaoh and show him the injustice of 
his policy?" 

Because Pharaoh was opinionated and obstinate, 
like Mr. Ingersoll ; and all the logic in the world could 
not alter his mind. Many rights are extorted by force 
from men who would turn a deaf ear to every appeal. 
George Washington implored the British Govern- 
ment not to alienate the sacred rights of the Colonists, 
and the eloquent lips of Pitt, Sheridan, and Burke 
thundered forth in the House of Parliament, pleading 
with the ministry not to involve the nation in a use- 
less and disastrous war with the American people; 
but the Home Government would not recognize the 
voice of reason and justice. 

"Why did God allow the snake to tempt Eve? 
Why did he not destroy the serpent?" 

God endowed man with intelligence to know the 
difference between right and wrong, and a free will 
to choose virtue or vice. No act can be meritorious 
where there is no liberty of choice. The patriot who 
volunteers to serve his country in the hour of peril, 
and sacrifices his life in a hazardous enterprise, will 
live in the songs of the nation; while the memory of 
the drafted soldier who perishes on the field of battle 



Lecture V. 97 

that he fain would shun even at the cost of national 
honor and freedom, is not consecrated by an ephemeral 
existence in journalistic records. So God, wishing 
man to enjoy the advantages of merit, has bestowed 
on him the gift of free will, and has allowed the angel 
of darkness to test his fidelity by every temptation that 
can fascinate the mind and allure the flesh. 

Mr. Ingersoll is surprised to learn that God only 
rewards those who have struggled to obey his pre- 
cepts. And on the same principle I am equally aston- 
ished that Mr. Ingersoll does not donate his income 
to the strangers that he meets in his travels. A 
reasonable man can not expect legacies from people 
whom he has never served or befriended, with whom 
he has never ingratiated himself, and to whom he is 
connected by no bonds; and likewise God only re- 
munerates the faithful votary. 

"So the same God went into partnership with 
snakes," says Ingersoll. 

The Creator is omnipotent and can use the works 
of his hands to accomplish his designs. We notice in 
reading the history of the Exodus that the Almighty 
utilized natural agencies in the introduction and ban- 
ishment of the plagues that afflicted Egypt. God has 
implanted in the brute the power of instinct, and in 
virtue of this gift the thoughtless bird scents the 
march of the storm and the breath of the blast, and 
seeks refuge from the chilly frost in the balmy breeze 
of southern skies. Infinite Wisdom can likewise direct 
the mind of the creeping serpent to accomplish the 
desires of his will. 

Then he tells us that "God got mad because the 
Israelites wanted a change of diet." 



98 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

Let us suppose that Mr. Ingersoll would pur- 
chase a slave from a cruel master, and would give 
that slave his liberty, and make him one of the family, 
and that that slave would complain about Mr. Inger- 
soll's habits, would criticise his manners, and would 
declare that his house was unfit for a gentleman to 
dwell in, that he was better provided for as a slave 
than now as a freeman, and that the board given by 
the Colonel's family was loathsome; I have not the 
slightest hesitancy in saying that the Colonel would 
discard the wretch and drive him from his premises. 
This is an illustration of Jewish ingratitude and divine 
longanimity. 

The agnostic does not believe the story about the 
manna. "He fed them on manna. Now, manna is 
a very peculiar stuff. It would melt in the sun, and 
yet they used to cook it by seething and baking. 
I would as soon think of frying snow or boiling 
icicles." 

Although I do not agree altogether with Dean 
Milman, yet I will give a quotation from his able 
pen for the purpose of meeting the infidel's remarks 
on his own grounds. "This is now clearly ascertained 
by Seetzen and Burckhardt to be a natural produc- 
tion. It distills from the thorns of the tamarisk in 
the month of June. It is still collected by the Arabs 
before sunrise, when it is coagulated, but it dissolves 
as soon as the sun shines upon it. Its taste is agree- 
able, somewhat aromatic, and as sweet as honey. It 
may be kept for a year, and is only found after a 
wet season. It is still called by the Bedouins mann. 
The J quantity now collected is very small; the preter- 
natural part, therefore, of the Mosaic narrative con- 



Lecture V. 99 

sists in the immense and continual supply, and the 
circumstances under which it was gathered, particu- 
larly, it being preserved firm and sweet only for the 
Sababth day." (History of the Jews, p. 50.) In a 
note at the bottom of the same page we read this 
account: "The author, by the kindness of a traveler 
recently returned from Egypt, has received a small 
quantity of manna; it was, however, though still 
palatable, in a liquid state from the heat of the sun. 
He has obtained the additional curious fact that 
manna, if not boiled or baked, will not keep more than 
a day, but becomes putrid, and breeds maggots." 

These quotations, taken from authors who are 
familiar with the question, and who speak from ex- 
perimental knowledge, prove that there is a substance 
in existence to-day that will melt with the heat of 
the sun, and yet must be boiled or baked to be kept 
in a state of preservation. 

The thoughtful reader will see that the intended 
witticism of the blatant agnostic is but the ignorant 
effusion of a wiseacre. 

Josephus writes: "Even now in all that place this 
manna comes down in rain, according to what Moses 
then obtained of God, to send it to the people for 
their subsistence." (Antiquities of the Jews, Part 
First, p. 83.) 

Samuel Burder comments on Josephus in the 
following terms : "This supposal that the sweet honey- 
dew, or manna, so celebrated in ancient and modern 
authors, was of the very same sort as the manna sent 
to the Israelites, savors more of Gentilism than of 
Judaism or Christianity. It is not impossible that 
some ancient Gentile author, read by Josephus, 



ioo The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

thought so; nor would he have contradicted him, 
though just before and iv, 3, he seems directly to allow 
that it had not been seen previously. In Artapanus, 
a heathen writer, "it is compared to meal, like oatmeal ; 
in color like snow, rained down by God.' " (Ibid., 
note, p. 83.) 

These quotations make it evident that the Israelites 
were fed by a peculiar substance known as manna; 
and that its appearance must have been an extraor- 
dinary occurrence, since it is noticed by pagan 
writers and acknowledged by Artapanus as a mirac- 
ulous intervention on the part of God in behalf of 
the chosen generation. 



LECTURE VI. 

QUERY. "Was it not impossible for such an 
army as the Israelites to pass over the Red Sea 
in one night? Is not the Red Sea about thirty or 
forty miles wide?" 

Answer. Thevenot, "an eyewitness, informs us 
that this sea for about five days' journey is nowhere 
more than eight or nine miles across; and in one 
place it is but four or five miles, according to DeLisle's 
map, which is made from the best authorities." 
(Antiquities of the Jews, Part First, p. 78.) Niebuhr 
"supposes that the passage was effected near the 
modern Suez. Here he forded the sea, which is about 
two miles wide; but he asserts that the channel must 
formerly have been much deeper, and that the gulf 
extended much farther to the north than at present." 
(Milman's History of the Jews, p. 45.) 

Query. "Do you not think that the passage of 
the Red Sea is a fiction; for we read a similar account 
in the life of Alexander?" 

Answer. Diodorus Siculus relates, "that the 
Ichthyophagi, who lived near the Red Sea, had a 
tradition handed down through a long line of an- 
cestors that the whole bay was once laid bare to the 
very bottom, the waters retiring to the opposite shore, 
and that afterwards they returned to their accustomed 
channel with a most tremendous revulsion. Even to 
this day the inhabitants in the neighborhood of Co- 
rondel preserve the remembrance of a mighty army 
having been drowned in the bay which Ptolemy calls 

101 



102 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

Clysma. (Antiquities of the Jews, P. L, p. 78.) 
"Even to this day," says Niebuhr, "if you ask an Arab 
where the Egyptian army was destroyed, he will point 
to the place opposite to him." (Milman's Jews, p. 46.) 
Callisthenes, Strabo, Arrian, and Appian relate the 
transit of Alexander the Great over the Pamphylian 
Sea. As to Callisthenes, who himself accompanied 
Alexander in this expedition, Eustatius, in his note 
upon the third Iliad of Homer, tells us that Callisthenes 
wrote how the Pamphylian Sea did not only open a 
passage for Alexander, but by rising and elevating its 
waters did pay him homage as its king. Strabo's ac- 
count is this : "Now, about Phaselis is that narrow pas- 
sage of the seaside through which Alexander led his 
army. There is a mountain called Climax which 
joins to the Sea of Pamphylia, and in calm weather 
there is a narrow passage between this mountain and 
the sea; but in stormy weather this passage is covered 
to a great depth with waves. Alexander crossed this 
water in the winter season. Trusting to good fortune, 
he marched on before the waves retired, and was a 
whole day making the transit, and his men were under 
water up to their waists." 

Arrian writes, "that the narrow passage between 
the mountains and the sea is bare when the north wind 
blows, and that it is submerged when the south wind 
prevails. When Alexander approached the sea, the 
wind was blowing from the south, but afterwards 
veered to the north, and by this means and the assist- 
ance of Divine providence, Alexander made a quick 
and easy passage." (Josephus, Antiquities of the 
Jews, note, p. 79.) 

These authors inform us that the travelers always 



Lecture VI. 103 

took this nearer route between the sea and moun- 
tain when the weather was such as to leave a portion 
free from the waves, and that the sea only covered 
this road at certain times. So there is nothing of a 
miraculous nature in the account of Alexander's 
passage. 

Mr. Ingersoll states that "they say that the book 
(Pentateuch) is inspired. I do not care whether it is 
or is not; the question is: is it true? If it is true, it 
do n't need to be inspired. Nothing needs inspiration, 
except a falsehood or a mistake. A fact never went 
into partnership with a miracle." 

We will premise, for the sake of illustration, that 
I enjoy the gift of creative power, and of course, that 
gift in my possession being a fact, according to the 
Colonel, it is a truth. Yet nobody will believe that I 
can give life to inanimate beings, and the people tell me 
they will acknowledge my claims if I give them proof 
of my power. I accept the challenge, and change a 
stone into a fish. Now, this is a fact, and at the same 
time it is a miraculous fact, or a miracle; therefore, 
a fact can go into partnership with a miracle. More- 
over, the reality of my ability can never be revealed 
and demonstrated, unless through the mediation of 
miracles. Hence truth does not essentially scorn 
miracles; but it may require the intervention of 
miraculous deeds to declare its existence. Self-evident 
truths that are known to all, and whose denial would 
involve a contradiction in terms, would not require 
the assistance of miracles. Again, we depend for our 
acquisition of many truths on the authority and vera- 
city of others ; and since human frailty is so uncertain, 
we can never be positive about the verity of facts that 



104 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

come to us through statements of one or two fallible 
men. Hence, when Christ came to fulfill the Ancient 
Testament, he substantiated his pretensions by the 
seal of Divine Omnipotence; and when Moses ap- 
peared before the king of Egypt, he showed the 
authenticity of his commission by facts that could 
not be controverted. 

The Colonel continues : "Suppose we wish to make 
a treaty with the Mikado of Japan, and Mr. Hayes 
sent a commissioner there; and suppose he should 
employ Hermann, the wonderful German, to go 
along with him; and when they came in the presence 
of the Mikado, Hermann threw down an umbrella 
which changed into a turtle, and the commissioner 
said, 'This is my certificate,' — you would say that the 
Nation is disgraced. You would say, the Pres- 
ident of a Republic like this disgraces himself with 
jugglery. Yet we are told that God sent Moses and 
Aaron before Pharaoh, and when they got there, Mo- 
ses threw down a stick which turned into a snake." 

When the President of the United States sends an 
envoy to a foreign court, or a plenipotentiary to nego- 
tiate a treaty with a foreign power, he furnishes him 
with credentials that certify that ambassadorial 
prerogatives have been conferred on the bearer. 
When God sends a delegate to speak to the human 
race, he arms him with credentials, and these creden- 
tials must be of such a nature that they can not be 
counterfeited. A miracle is the only testimonial of 
that stamp. A miracle is the only act that gives 
evidence of infinite power, and it is the only seal of 
heaven; and the messenger who would come without 
this seal would be ignored, just as the representative 



Lecture VI. 105 

to a foreign court would be dismissed unless his 
commission was fortified by the seal of the Govern- 
ment. Mr. Ingersoll presumes that miracles are im- 
possible, and therefore he calls Moses and Aaron 
jugglers. 

"Truth does not need inspiration." Truth is a 
reality, or, to give a philosophical definition, Whatever 
is, is true. Now, I suppose the Colonel will admit that 
there are truths even in nature that he is not cognizant 
of, and perhaps they will ever be a mystery, not only 
to ordinary minds and even the scientists of the pres- 
ent age, but to the mental giants, who, in the distant 
future, may scale the cloudcapped summits of intel- 
ligence. There are truths pertaining to the divine 
nature that are beyond the comprehension of limited 
minds. Besides, there are doctrines and laws that the 
Creator may wish to promulgate. All these truths, 
both finite and infinite, could be revealed by Omni- 
science to humanity through the agency of a mes- 
senger who would write them in a book ; and this book 
would be an inspired record of truths, in many respects 
beyond the grasp of human wisdom. This illustration 
blasts the statement that "truth does not need inspi- 
ration." 

Again, the skeptic presumes that all truths are cog- 
noscible; and this is a false supposition. I will offer 
another exemplification of the necessity of inspiration. 
A man tells me that it is forbidden to kill game during 
a certain season; but I can not see any harm in the 
act, and I ignore his admonition. However, I look 
into the statute-book, and I learn that game laws 
have been enacted by the Legislature, empowered by 
the majesty of the Government to act in its name; 



106 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

and, yielding to this venerable authority, I obey the 
statutes regulating the hunting of game. A man in- 
forms me that it is sinful to labor on Sunday. That 
day seems the same as any other to me, and I dis- 
regard his advice. I examine the Bible, and I read, 
"Remember, keep holy the Sabbath-day." I inquire 
into the authority of that volume, and I learn that it 
has been written by the inspiration of the Holy 
Ghost, and sanctioned by the voice of Heaven; and 
I immediately submit to its decrees. I obey the game 
laws, not because they seem just, but because sustained 
by an authority that has the right to speak; and I 
observe the sanctity of the Sabbath on the same prin- 
ciple. The law-book was inspired by the voice of the 
Nation, the Bible by the voice of the Most High. The 
inspiration in each case is the motive of my sub- 
mission. 

"A falsehood or a mistake" can not be inspired, 
because God, being eternal truth, can not lend his 
assistance to the propagation of error. The Colonel 
avers that "the belief in inspiration originated in an 
age of ignorance and superstition;" but as he advances 
no arguments to support this theory, it does not 
deserve any notice. 

In the Bible the descendants of Seth, or the pa- 
triarchs, are called the sons of God on account of 
their virtues and faith; and the children of Cain, or 
the wicked world that was not included in the patri- 
archal family, are called the sons of men, because 
they were distinguished by all the vices of unbridled 
passion. And Moses speaks of the marriages between 
the just and wicked when he says that "the sons of 
God, seeing the daughters of men, that they were fair, 



Lecture VI. 107 

took to themselves wives of all which they chose." This 
interpretation is sustained by other passages, showing 
that this was the Biblical mode of designating the 
righteous and the unrighteous; and Mr. Ingersoll's 
vulgar allusions to carnal divinities as they existed 
among the heathen nations of antiquity is the vagary 
of a distorted mind. 

"The second account of the creation begins at the 
third verse (second chapter), and it differs from the 
first in two essential points. In the first account man 
is the last made; and in the second man is made be- 
fore the beast. In the first account man is made male 
and female; in the second account only man is made, 
and there is no intention of making a woman what- 
ever." 

The first account gives the order in which every- 
thing was created; and the second merely recapitulates 
a few of the creations, without any intention of men- 
tioning them according to the order of their creation. 
In the first account he speaks of the creation of the 
beast on the sixth day, and in the second he says, "that 
God, having formed out of the ground all the beasts 
of the earth, and all the fowls of the air, brought them 
to Adam to see what he would call them." Here the 
beasts are spoken of for the purpose of showing that 
Adam gave them their names. In the first account 
God is represented as creating man, male and female, 
and in the second Moses speaks of the particular 
manner in which the female was formed. So there 
is no contradiction in this double account. 

Speaking of the rainbow, Ingersoll asks the ques- 
tion: "Can any one believe that that is the origin of 
the rainbow?" 



108 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

Moses never declared that the phenomenon of the 
rainbow was formed at that particular time, but merely 
affirmed that what before was a natural appearance 
of roseate clouds, would in the future be the sign of 
a covenant. Let us suppose that two ardent lovers 
are walking in the shimmer of the nocturnal skies, 
and the young man wishes to fortify the fidelity of the 
incredulous maiden in the sincerity of his affection 
and the durability of his passion. We can easily 
imagine that he would direct her attention to the 
beauty of the stars, and that he would swear that he 
would love her as long as those lamps should glitter 
in the dome of heaven. Would any one think that the 
gallant Romeo pretended to illuminate the welkin with 
those scintillant flames for the purpose of assuring 
his Juliet that his fondness for her would never wane? 
God promised never to destroy the earth again, and 
he told the people that the rainbow, which would be 
as eternal as the cause that produced it, would be a 
sign of his covenant with mankind. 

In referring to the confusion of tongues at the 
tower of Babel, the agnostic wants to know "if it be 
possible that any one believes that that is the reason 
that we have the variety of languages in the world?" 

When the Bible says that the earth was of one 
tongue and the same speech, we can follow the Scrip- 
tural mode of expression which refers to a part as the 
whole, owing to the fact that the sacred penmen re- 
gard only the children of the patriarchs, exclusive of 
idolatrous nations, when writing of events of the time; 
and hence they frequently use the words all, every, 
etc., when they intend to apply those expressions 
merely to one people. On this question Dr. Zahn, 



Lecture VI. 109 

who is one of the ablest scientists of the age, says that 
the most eminent linguists have discovered that there 
are but three families of languages : the Semitic, Aryan, 
and the Turanian; and that all those show evident 
signs of having been derived from a common source. 
Josephus writes: 'The place where they built the tower 
is called Babylon because of the confusion of that lan- 
guage which they readily understood before; for the 
Hebrew means, by the word Babylon, confusion. The 
Sibyl also makes mention of the tower and the con- 
fusion of the language when she says, When all men 
were of one language, some of them built an high 
tower, as if they would thereby ascend up to heaven; 
but the gods sent storms of wind, and overthrew the 
tower, and gave every one his peculiar language; and 
for this reason it w r as the city was called Babylon.' " 
(Antiquities of the Jews, P. L, p. 20.) 

Burder says: "That what is here remarkable is 
that Moses Chorenensis, the Armenian historian, 
confirms this history that God overthrew this tower 
by a terrible and divine storm, and confounded the 
language of the builders, and this from the earliest 
records belonging to that nation." (Ibid., note, p. 20.) 
These authorities show that it was a common belief 
among the pagan nations of antiquity that one lan- 
guage was spoken in the beginning, and that tongues 
were multiplied at the tower of Babel. 

"God never established a school for the He- 
brews." 

While I have the greatest admiration for secular 
and scientific learning, yet with every thoughtful mind 
I believe that morality is superior to profound eru- 
dition. Mental culture has for its object the ame- 



no The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

lioration of humanity by cultivation of a strong sense 
of right and wrong, law and order, justice and clem- 
ency, charity and philanthropy; the eradication of base 
instincts from the heart, and the extirpation of passions 
from the flesh. Now, the moral man contains in his 
personality all these attainments, and though he can 
not decipher the simplest chirography, he is superior 
to the accomplished linguist and the profound mathe- 
matician who may be deficient in these noble senti- 
ments. The Romans who lived under the Republic, 
though lacking in mental training, were of a nobler 
type of men than the intellectual giants who flourished 
in the days of the Empire ; for virtue was the distinctive 
trait of the former, and from the days of Augustus 
vice infected the populace and the soldiery, and entered 
the Senate of the nation, and disgraced the court of 
the Caesars. 

Knowledge is the acquisition of truth, and this 
can be accomplished without the aid of schools. Only 
a few of the ancient Greeks could read or write, and 
yet the modern world, with all its boasting about in- 
tellectual progress, has never reached the sublime 
heights of thought trod by the ancient Hellenes. The 
unlettered Israelites, wandering over the desert of 
Arabia, were farther advanced than the astronomers 
who adorned the throne of the Pharaohs, because they 
were conversant with the mysteries of creation, the 
origin of the world, and the distinction between matter 
and spirit. 

Life is eternal, and carnal existence is as transient 
as the fleeting shadows of a day. In leaving this 
world, man enters into a state of immortality, where 
he will be eternally occupied in reading the mysteries 



Lecture VI. m 

of nature. God contains the essence of all things, 
both real and possible; and when the soul stands face 
to face with the Creator, it will read the millions of 
truths written in the eternal book of nature, which is 
no other than the Infinite Mind where every concept 
is inscribed in letters of gold. The soul will fly from 
world to world, from sphere to sphere, and will study 
their composition and laws and forces, which are now 
enveloped in clouds and mists; and the difficulties 
which are beyond our comprehension will be eluci- 
dated, for every mystery and every law and force will 
be revealed in its prototype. What is the knowledge 
of our ephemeral lives when placed in the scale of 
infinite love, which will constitute the food for the 
soul's eternal thought and reflection? 

Besides, the establishment of schools does not lie 
in God's sphere of action. That is man's work. Mr. 
Ingersoll might have asked, why did not God acquaint 
us with the properties of steam and electricity, and 
build railroads and telegraph lines? 

"How many people did they have when they went 
to Egypt?" Seventy. How many were there at the 
end of two hundred and fifteen years? Three mil- 
lions. And Mr. Ingersoll claims that this was an im- 
possibility. 

In the first place, we can not depend on these 
figures, for there have been controversies on this 
question for the past two thousand years. In the 
words of Dean Milman, "Some assign the whole 
duration of four hundred and thirty years to the cap- 
tivity in Egypt; others include the residence of the 
patriarchs, two hundred and fifteen years, in this 
period. The Hebrew and Samaritan text, the differ- 



ii2 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

ent copies of the Greek version, differ." As there is 
doubt about the chronology of the times, it is an open 
question,, and we can follow the most favorable opin- 
ion, which gives the Israelites in Egypt a period of four 
hundred and thirty years. However, we can show 
that the increase could take place in two hundred and 
fifteen years. Warm countries, like Egypt, are very 
prolific in the multiplication of the human species, 
and we know from history, that the Israelites had very 
large families, usually about twelve children. How- 
ever, we will take ten for an illustration. This would 
make five the ratio of increase. In two hundred and 
fifteen years there could be seven generations, allow- 
ing thirty years for a generation. In seven gener- 
ations seventy people, increasing at the ratio of five 
in geometrical progression, would produce five mil- 
lion; and this covers the figures given in Numbers. 

"There were forty-five thousand first-born children, 
and there must have been as many mothers as first- 
born children; and dividing three millions by forty- 
five thousand mothers, you will find that the women of 
Israel had to have on the average sixty-eight children 
apiece." 

The first-born of Levi were not numbered with 
the others, and we can add five thousand more to the 
original figures, making a total of fifty thousand 
mothers in Israel. The Colonel presumes that the 
mothers of all Israel were still living, whereas these 
first-born merely represent one generation. As the 
first-born were about one-tenth or one-twelfth of the 
family, there must have been about five hundred 
thousand or six hundred thousand people to that 
generation; and as the -longevity of those days in- 



Lecture VI. 113 

eluded five or six generations in a lifetime, we can 
easily meet the difficulty by giving each mother ten or 
twelve children. Fifty thousand mothers in one gen- 
eration would call for two hundred and fifty thousand 
in five generations; and three millions divided by two 
hundred and fifty thousand gives twelve for a quotient. 
So you see that Mr. Ingersoll is rather deficient in 
mathematical skill. 

"Every mother had to offer a sacrifice of two 
pigeons at the birth of each child. Now, we know 
that among three millions of people there would be 
about three hundred births a day. The priests had to 
cook and eat these pigeons in the most holy place, and 
there were only three priests. Two hundred birds 
apiece per day! I look upon them as the champion 
bird-eaters of the world." 

The Bible states that at the presentation' of a child 
the mother "shall take two turtles or two young 
pigeons, one for holocaust, and another for sin; and 
the priest shall pray for her, and so she shall be 
cleansed." (Leviticus xii, 8.) There is not one word 
here about the eating of the pigeons. The priests 
were commanded to eat parts of the offering in the 
temple, but were not compelled to eat the entire offer- 
ing; and what remained was consumed with fire, as 
we learn from the following text: "Eat ye also the 
loaves of consecration that are laid in the basket as 
the Lord commanded me, saying, Aaron and his sons 
shall eat them, and whatever shall be left of the flesh 
and the loaves shall be consumed with fire." (Levit- 
icus viii, 31, 32.) "If any man by vow, or of his own 
accord, offer a sacrifice, it shall in like manner be eaten 
the same day, and if any of it remain until the morrow, 



ii4 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

it is lawful to eat it. But whatsoever shall be found 
the third day shall be consumed with fire." (Leviticus 
vii, 15, 26.) "If ye offer in sacrifice a peace offering 
to the Lord that he may be favorable, you shall eat it 
on the same day that it was offered, and the next day; 
and whatsoever shall be left the third day you shall 
burn with fire." (Leviticus xix, 5, 6.) "And Aaron 
and his sons shall eat it. The loaves also that are in 
the basket they shall eat in the entry to the tabernacle 
of the testimony; and if there remain of the consecrated 
flesh, or of the bread, till the morning, thou shalt 
burn the remainder with fire." (Exodus xxix, 32.) 
I could quote many other passages; but these will suf- 
fice to show that the priests were authorized to con- 
sume the remains of oblations in some cases after the 
first day, and in others on the third day. There was 
no injunction compelling them to eat the entire offer- 
ing, and if they were satisfied with two birds, there 
was no necessity for eating two hundred. 

There is no absolute certainty about the number 
of people who went into the wilderness with Moses, 
and consequently there is doubt in relation to the 
figures given in the Pentateuch. It is easy to fall into 
error in dealing with numbers, and it is probable that 
transcribers and translators have inadvertently added 
a cipher in some places. This supposition is very 
plausible. In that event sixty thousand would be- 
come six hundred thousand, and this number would 
coincide with all other declarations. Again, we might 
presume that all of the males of Israel were included 
in the six hundred thousand, or even all of both sexes 
that were able to walk, since the Bible mentions in 
one place that there were six hundred thousand men 



Lecture VI. 115 

on foot. Man is frequently used to signify the species, 
and may represent the feminine as well as the mas- 
culine gender. 

"Then where were the Jews? They were upon the 
desert of Sinai; and Sahara, compared to that, is a 
garden. Imagine an ocean of lava, torn by storm 
and vexed by tempests, suddenly gazed at by Gorgon 
and changed to stone. The whole supplies of the 
world could not maintain three millions of people on 
the desert of Sinai for forty years." 

This statement is not supported by facts. I will 
now produce the evidence of men who are thoroughly 
acquainted with that district. Henry Hart Milman 
says: "The high district immediately around Sinai, 
extending about thirty miles in diameter, is by no 
means barren; vegetation is richer than in other parts 
of the desert. Streams of water flow in the valleys; 
dates and other trees abound." (History of the Jews, 

P. 550 

An area of thirty miles in diameter contains seven 

hundred and seven square miles, and four hundred and 
fifty-two thousand four hundred and eighty acres of 
land ; and that much territory, highly cultivated, would 
be ample to sustain the flocks of Israel. The Nile 
valley is one thousand miles long and from eleven 
to two miles wide, making an average width of five 
and one-half miles. This multiplied by one thousand 
gives five thousand five hundred square miles. 
History informs us that this territory not only sup- 
ported a teeming population, but supplied the world 
in times of famine. In face of these statistics it 
is absurd to contend that the desert of Sinai was in- 
sufficient to provide provender for the herds of Israel. 



n6 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

But I can supplement this quotation with the evidence 
of an eyewitness, who claims that Arabia is a fertile 
and beautiful country. In his "Pre-historic Nations" 
John D. Baldwin gives abundant authority for the 
annihilation of the false notion prevailing among a 
certain class of people that Arabia is an arid waste. 
"In 1862 and 1863 Mr. William Gifford Palgrave, 
whose long residence in the East, intimate knowledge 
of the Mahometan world, and perfect knowledge of 
the Arabic language gave him admirable qualifications 
for such a tour of observation, spent six months in 
Central Arabia, traveling through it from west to 
east. He tells us that he began this journey, suppos- 
ing, like most people, that Arabia was almost ex- 
clusively the territory of nomads. Instead of nomads 
and uninhabitable wastes he found a rich and beautiful 
country, a settled and civilized population. Mr. Pal- 
grave discovered that Central Arabia is an extensive 
and fertile table-land, diversified by hills and valleys, 
and surrounded by a waste and desert soil. He esti- 
mates that the great" plateau comprises nearly half 
of the whole peninsula, or about five hundred thou- 
sand square miles, which is twice the extent of France. 
He touched the kingdom of Shomer first at Wadi 
Serhan, and came down to the Djowf, an oasis which 
is fertile and beautiful." (Pre-historic Nations, p. 69, 
et seq.) Mr. Baldwin writes that "the whole extent 
of the peninsula contains over a million square miles, 
and probably three-fourths of it is now excellent for 
cultivation. In the great days of Ethiopian supremacy 
a still larger portion of Arabia was used for agricul- 
tural purposes. Even now a sufficient supply of water 
for irrigation would transform most of the desert 



Lecture VI. 117 

districts into luxuriant fields and gardens. The an- 
cient Arabians provided for this want by means of 
immense tanks, similar to those still existing in 
Ceylon." (Pre-historic Nations, p. J2.) Just imagine 
a country with an arable and fertile territory, twice 
the extent of France, not being able to provide for 
the wants of a population about one-fourteenth the 
size of France! 

Mr. Ingersoll continues his ridiculous remarks 
that "while the Israelites were on the desert they 
sacrificed one hundred and fifty thousand lambs, and 
the blood had to be sprinkled on the altar within two 
hours, and there were only three priests. They would 
have to sprinkle the blood of one thousand, two 
hundred and fifty lambs per minute." 

That statement is not found in the Pentateuch; 
and I brand it as a contemptible piece of forgery. The 
largest sacrifices ever offered by the children of Abra- 
ham in the days of Moses were the offerings of the 
princes at the dedication of the Tabernacle. One day 
was appointed for the offering of each prince, who 
made an offering of three oxen, six rams, six buck- 
goats, and six lambs. Twelve days were consumed in 
the offerings of all the houses of Israel, and the total 
number comprised thirty-six oxen, seventy-two 
rams, seventy-two buck-goats, and seventy-two lambs, 
making an aggregate of two hundred and fifty-two 
victims. The following are the words of the Sacred 
Volume: "These were the offerings made by the 
princes of Israel in the dedication of the altar in the 
day wherein it was consecrated : Twelve oxen out of 
the herd for holocaust, twelve rams, twelve lambs of 
a year-old, twelve buck-goats for sin; and for the 



n8 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

sacrifice of peace offerings: oxen twenty-four, rams 
sixty, buck-goats sixty, and lambs sixty." (Numbers 
vii.) This is another specimen of Mr. Ingersoll's 
mendacity. 

He says that "all the people gathered in front of 
the Tabernacle." 

If he had studied the Bible and Biblical author- 
ities, he would have learned that only the males 
assembled in front of the Tabernacle, while the 
women and little children were excused. 

"Palestine is a frightful country, covered with 
rocks and desolation. There never was a land agent 
in the city of Chicago that would not blush with 
shame to have described that land as flowing with 
milk and honey." 

We learn from several encyclopedias and hun- 
dreds of travelers that the plains of Sharon, Philistia, 
Esdraelon, and Jericho are the most prolific lands in 
the world. For the consolation of Mr. Ingersoll, and 
for the satisfaction of those who have not read a 
description of Canaan, I will produce the opinions 
of men who have visited that country ancj are quali- 
fied to judge of its fertility. "The tribes of Reuben 
and Gad, addicted to a pastoral life, and rich in flocks 
and herds, could desire no fairer possession than the 
luxuriant meadows of Bashan and the sloping pastures 
of Gilead. To the north spread out the luxuriant 
fields of Esdraelon, the more hilly, yet fruitful, country 
of Lower Galilee. The Jewish domain at the time of 
the division was one hundred and eighty miles long, 
and one hundred and thirty miles wide, and contained 
fourteen million nine hundred and seventy-six acres. 
This quantity of land will divide to six hundred thou- 



Lecture VI. 119 

sand men about twenty-one and one-half acres in prop- 
erty, with a remainder of one million nine hundred 
and seventy-six thousand for the Levitical cities, the 
princes of the tribes, the heads of families, and other 
public uses. The extraordinary fertility of the whole 
country must be taken into account. No part was 
waste; very little was occupied by unprofitable wood; 
the more fertile hills were cultivated in artificial 
terraces; others were hung- with orchards of fruit- 
trees; the more rocky and barren districts were cov- 
ered with vineyards. Even in the present day the 
wars and misgovernment of ages have not exhausted 
the natural richness of the soil. 

"Galilee, says Malte Brun, would be a paradise, 
were it inhabited by an industrious people under an 
enlightened government. No land could be less de- 
pendent on foreign importation; it bore within itself 
everything that could be necessary for the subsist- 
ence and comfort of a simple agricultural people. 
The climate was healthy, the seasons regular; grain 
of all kinds — wheat, barley, millet, zea, and other 
sorts — grew in abundance. Besides the vine and the 
olive, the almond, the date, figs of many kinds, the 
orange, the pomegranate, and many other fruits flour- 
ished in the greatest luxuriance." (Milman, History 
of the Jews, p. 90 and 97; also see following pages.) 

Bayard Taylor, formerly Minister of the United 
States to the Sublime Porte, and who traveled ex- 
tensively in the East, thus speaks of Palestine: "The 
view reached from the sea to Jerusalem and south- 
ward to the Plains of Ascalon — a great expanse of 
grain and grazing land, all blossoming as the rose, 
and dotted, especially near the mountains, with dark, 



120 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

luxuriant olive-groves. Between Ramleh and the 
hill country (a distance of about eight miles) is the 
rolling plain of Arimathea, and this, as well as the 
greater part of the plain of Sharon, is one of the 
richest districts in the world. The soil is a dark-brown 
loam, and, without manure, produces annually superb 
crops of wheat and barley. We rode for miles through 
a sea of wheat, waving far and wide over swells 
of land. The tobacco in the fields about Ramleh was 
the most luxuriant I ever saw, and the olive and fig 
attain a size and lusty strength wholly unknown in 
Italy. Judea cursed of God! What a misconception, 
not only of God's mercy and beneficence, but of the 
actual fact! Give Palestine into Christian hands, 
and it will again flow with milk and honey. Except 
some parts of Asia Minor, no portion of the Levant 
is capable of yielding such a harvest of grain, silk, 
wool, fruits, oil, and wine." (Land of the Saracen, 
P- 50-51-52, etc.) 



LECTURE VII. 

QUERY. "Could not Moses have taken ad- 
vantage of the tides in crossing the Red Sea? 
Perhaps this can account for the so-called miracle of 
the dividing of the waters." 

Answer. I will answer this query by giving an 
extract from the pen of Milman. "At an early period 
historians (particularly in Egypt), hostile to the Jews, 
asserted that Moses, well acquainted with the tides 
of the Red Sea, took advantage of the ebb, and passed 
over his army, while the incautious Egyptians, at- 
tempting to follow, were surprised by the flood, and 
perished. Yet, after every concession, it seems quite 
evident that without one particular wind the ebb-tide, 
even in the narrowest part of the channel, could not 
be kept back long enough to allow a number of people 
to cross in safety. We have, then, the alternative 
of supposing that a man of the consummate prudence 
and sagacity and the local knowlerge attributed to 
Moses, altered, suspended, or at least did not hasten 
his march, and thus deliberately involved the people 
whom he had rescued at so much pains and risk in 
danger of being overtaken by the enemy, led back 
as slaves, or massacred, on the chance that an un- 
usually strong wind would blow at a particular hour 
for a given time, so as to keep back the flood, 
then die away and allow the tide to return at 
the precise instant when the Egyptians were in the 
middle of their passage." (History of the Jews, p. 45.) 
Samuel Burder confirms the opinion of Milman. In 

121 



122 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

his comments on Josephus in his "Antiquities of the 
Jews" (P. L, page 78), he writes that it "has been 
further objected against the passage of the Red Sea 
being miraculous, that Moses might convey the Is- 
raelites over at a low tide without any miracle, while 
yet the Egyptians, not knowing the tide as well as 
he, might be drowned upon the return of the tide." 
Burder claims that this supposition is absurd. "Yet," 
continues the author, "Artapanus informs us that the 
learned Heliopolitans owned the destruction of the 
Egyptians and the deliverance of the Israelites to 
have been miraculous. And De Castro, a mathema- 
tician, who surveyed the sea with great exactness, 
informs us, that there is no great flux or reflux in 
this part of the Red Sea to give color to the hypoth- 
esis; nay, that the elevation of the tide there is little 
above half the height of a man." 

Mr. Ingersoll ridicules the idea that the Almighty 
boasted for a thousand years because he overthrew the 
legions of Pharaoh. 

There are frequent allusions to the conquest of 
the Egyptians in the Ancient Testament; and God 
refers to that fact, not to remind the people of his mili- 
tary skill, as the atheist would infer — for the world 
is filled with manifestations of his Omnipotence — but 
merely to show the Israelites that their God was 
the God of creation, the God of storms and floods 
and waves; and that the sea obeyed the voice of its 
King, and rolled its billows up in liquid columns, and 
again fell in tremendous volumes on the pursuing 
hosts, and inhumed their ranks in the bottom of the 
deep. God awakens in the mind of Israel this marvel- 
ous event to show his Divine providence in behalf 



Lecture VII. 123 

of the chosen generation, and to excite in their hearts 
the virtue of gratitude, to strengthen their loyalty, 
and to confirm their obedience. As the years roll 
away we assemble on the Fourth of July, and listen 
with motionless enchantment to floods of oratory 
painting the scenes of '76 and the triumphs of '83, 
when the echoes of war were heard no more among 
our mountains, and the tramp of armies created no 
dismal sounds, and the hoof of the battle-steed awak- 
ened no fears in the breast of wife and mother, and the 
heart of child and maid; when the star-spangled 
banner waved in peaceful folds from turret and tower, 
and proclaimed to the wide world that this was "The 
land of the free and the home of the brave." We cel- 
ebrate the anniversary of our National Independence 
to keep alive in our hearts the flame of patriotism, 
and to cultivate the spirit of gratitude toward our 
fathers, who, for our sake, faced the burnished blade 
and reeking gun, and bore the privations of camp and 
march and the bivouac of the night. 

Mr. Ingersoll asserts that there were six hundred 
thousand fighting men among the sons of Jacob, and 
the Egyptian army did not exceed one hundred 
thousand. 

I will not contest the figures, for the assertion 
presents no difficulty. The Israelites had been in 
thralldom for hundreds of years, and were, perhaps, 
totally unacquainted with military tactics and engines 
of war. History makes us familiar with the superior- 
ity of disciplined troops over the ill-formed plans and 
devices of inexperienced soldiers, unequipped with 
destructive weapons of defense. Prescott says, in his 
"Conquest of Mexico," that Cortes, with six hundred 
armed men, found it an easy task to subdue a land 



i2zj. The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

that could number more than one million of warriors. 
Should we be surprised that the unaided hosts of 
Israel were not a match for a standing army of one 
hundred thousand? 

The agnostic says that "he can not understand 
why God should kill a sheep, just because somebody 
had done a mean trick." 

The sacrifices of the old law were typical of the 
great sacrifice of Golgotha which atoned for the sins 
of the world. Sin is a rebellion against heaven; and 
treason is punished in every land with the penalty of 
death. Humanity had merited this chastisement by 
its transgressions; but God, in his infinite mercy, 
deigned to immolate his only begotten Son as a 
vicarious atonement. The officiating priest would 
place his hands upon the victim to symbolize the 
transference of human iniquities to> the animal, and 
the substitution of irrational life for the blood of the 
sinner, and thus would remind the people of the 
enormity of their transgressions, and inspire the 
nation with horror for crime, and make the indi- 
vidual assiduous in the observance of the precepts.. 

"The blood was put on the right ear, right thumb, 
and big toe of the right foot," to signify that we 
should be governed by the law of justice and right- 
eousness, and that we should walk in the way of truth, 
and follow the path of virtue. 

"God killed the cattle of the Egyptians," first, to 
show his abhorrence for the idolatries and the abom- 
inations of that people by destroying their very 
possessions; and secondly, to punish the owners by 
the privation of these domestic animals. Was it 
great cruelty to kill the cattle? Why do we kill them 



Lecture VII. 125 

every day for our use? There is perfect order in the 
universe, and everywhere we observe the law of sub- 
ordination. Man is the noblest being on earth, and 
everything was created for his use, and ordained to 
serve his purposes. The animal kingdom has ac- 
complished the end of its existence when it has real- 
ized the design of the Creator in its submission to the 
promotion of human happiness, and the prolongation 
of human life. It is the lot of irrational creation to 
partake of the consequences of man's fall. The life 
of the animal is afflicted with countless sufferings. 
Can death, that terminates its sufferings, be a serious 
misfortune to the thoughtless beast? We have many 
reasons to believe that the irrational creation shall 
enjoy the gift of immortality; and Revelation gives us 
a glimpse of this idea. St. Paul says: "For I reckon 
that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be 
compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us. 
For the expectation of the creature waiteth for the 
revelation of the sons of God. For the creature was 
made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason 
of 'him that made it subject. Because the creature it- 
self shall be delivered from the servitude of corruption 
into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. 
For we know that every creature groaneth and travail- 
eth in pain even till now, and not it only, but ourselves 
also, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we 
ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adop- 
tion of the sons of God, the redemption of our body." 
(Romans viii, 18, et seq.) These passages evidently 
refer to the destiny of the animals, for there is a 
marked distinction between creature and man. It is 
said that the creature was made subject to vanity, or 



126 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

corruption, not willingly, but by reason of him who 
made it; that is, man, by his fall, which ingulfed the 
earth in sorrow. And, again, St. Paul writes, "Not 
only it, but we ourselves," showing distinctly that he 
embraces the irrational creation in the doctrine of 
resurrection and immortality. If every animated be- 
ing after death passes into realms of eternal life and 
joy, the destruction of temporal existence, with all 
its sorrows, must be regarded as the greatest blessing 
that could be accomplished in behalf of the creature. 

"There is not one word about woman in the Old 
Testament, except shame and humiliation," and Mr. 
Ingersoll denounces the Bible as an infamous book 
because it degrades the noblest being that ever lived. 

Surely the Colonel has not read the Ancient 
Scriptures sedulously. Solomon says that "the 
woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised." 
(Proverbs xxxi, 30.) "He that hath found a good 
wife hath found a good thing, and shall receive a 
pleasure from the Lord." (Proverbs xviii, 22.) "As 
the sun, when it riseth to the world in the high places 
of God, so is the beauty of a good wife for the orna- 
ment of her house." (Ecclesiasticus xxvi, 21.) "He 
that possesseth a good wife beginneth a possession. 
She is a help like to himself and a pillar of rest." 
(Ecclesiasticus xxxvi, 26.) We read in Ecclesiasticus : 
"Happy is the husband of a good wife; for the number 
of his years is double. A virtuous woman rejoiceth 
her husband, and shall fulfill the years of his life in 
peace. A good wife is a good portion. A holy 
and shamefaced woman is grace upon grace. As 
everlasting foundations upon solid rock, so the 
commandments of God in the heart of a holy 



Lecture VII. 127 

woman." (Ecclesiasticus xxvi.) "Children and the 
building of a city shall establish a name, but a 
blameless wife shall be accounted above both." 
(Ecclesiasticus xl, 19.) Does not the inspired writer 
address Judith in the most flattering language? 
"Thou art the glory of Jerusalem; thou art the joy 
of Israel; thou art the honor of our people." (Judith 
xv, 10.) In the very first book of the Jewish records 
woman is extolled in the highest terms, when the 
Almighty predicts the triumph of humanity over the 
power of darkness through the agency of the Virgin. 
Speaking to the serpent, the representative of Satan, 
God said, "I will place enmities between thee and the 
woman; between thy seed and her seed, and she shall 
crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel." 
(Genesis iii, 15.) 

I could produce hundreds of other passages that 
eulogize the faith, virtue, charity, love, beauty, wis- 
dom, and the influence of the gentle sex; but the above 
quotations are sufficient to prove the absurdity of 
Mr. Ingersoll's assertions. 

The Colonel says that "God should have liberated 
the Israelites at once. When he worked a miracle 
at all, why did he not perform one worth talking 
about?" 

In some places he laughs at the miraculous power 
of God, and, again, he ridicules Omnipotence for not 
displaying grander power. The remark is unworthy 
of an answer; and I shall dismiss it with the simple 
comment, that God never interferes with the laws of 
nature, and never reveals his majesty in miracles, 
except in extreme cases; and perhaps he gradually 
evolved his omnipotent wrath and vengeance to Egypt 



128 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

with the hope of mollifying the disposition of the mon- 
arch and converting his subjects by giving them time 
to reflect on their evil ways. 

In the fourteenth chapter of Deuteronomy we 
read that "every beast that divideth the hoof in two 
parts, and cheweth the cud, you shall eat. But of 
them that chew the cud, and divide not the hoof, you 
shall not eat; such as the camel, the hare," etc. In 
the eleventh chapter of Leviticus it is said that "the 
hare cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof." 
Mr. Ingersoll claims that "the hare does not chew 
the cud, and hence Moses made a mistake." From 
the context it is easily seen that two facts were neces- 
sary in the classification of clean animals. First, that 
they divide the hoof, and that the division should be 
real and complete, into two parts, and no more ; effect- 
ive, and not merely apparent; and besides, that its in- 
ternal, external, and anatomical construction be 
entirely conformable to this formation; and, secondly, 
that they chew the cud. The hare, in some of its 
varieties, may ruminate, yet the whole species is re- 
garded as unclean by reason of the construction of 
the feet. (Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible, Volume 
IV, p. 236-237.) 

"The general feeling of mankind has ordinarily 
abstained from most of the animals proscribed by the 
Mosaic law, excepting sometimes the camel, the hare, 
and the swine. The flesh of the camel is vapid and 
heavy; the wholesomness of the hare is questioned by 
Hippocrates; that of the swine in Southern countries 
tends to produce cutaneous maladies, the disease to 
which the Jews were peculiarly liable; besides, that 



Lecture VII. 129 

animal, being usually left in the East to its own filthy 
habits, is not merely unwholesome, but disgusting; 
it is the scavenger of the towns. Of the birds, those 
of prey were forbidden; of fish, those without fins 
or scales. The prohibition of blood (besides its ac- 
knowledged unwholesomeness, and in some instances 
fatal effects), perhaps, pointed at the custom of some 
savage tribes, which, like the Abyssinians, fed upon 
flesh torn warm from the animals, and almost quiver- 
ing with life. This disgusting practice may have been 
interdicted, not merely as unwholesome, but as pro- 
moting the ferocity of manners, which it was the first 
object of the lawgiver to discourage." (Milman, His- 
tory of the Jews, p. 74.) 

It is claimed by some writers that in the East the 
hare was not esteemed a safe food for its easily con- 
tracting and transmitting mange, leprosy, and other 
diseases. So we admit that Moses was correct in 
classifying the hare with unclean beasts; and whether 
that animal chews or does not chew the cud is a 
question of no vital importance. I will conclude my 
remarks on this subject with a quotation from North- 
graves: "Zoology, as a science, was not studied in the 
time of Moses as it is to-day; and the scientific classi- 
fication of animals was not made. Hence the words 
of Moses, it cheweth the cud, mahaleh gerah, must 
be taken in the sense in which they were used in 
ordinary conversation, not in the modern scientific 
sense. A certain muscular motion, which is habitual 
with hares, was commonly considered as the chewing 
of the cud, and was so named; and for this reason it is 
said that the hare chews the cud." (Mistakes of Mod- 
ern Infidels.) 



130 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

The Colonel claims that common sense will teach 
the necessity of the commandments. 

I will not deny that every precept of the Decalogue 
is in harmony with common sense; and I further ad- 
mit that reason is capable of conceiving the justice, 
utility, and necessity of the commandments; but it 
is more than probable that the human mind, obscured 
by errors and perturbed by passions, would never 
have conceived the commandments as fully and as 
lucidly as they are found in the records of the Hebrew 
legislator. My supposition is supported by history; 
for- 1 have already proved that the moral codes of 
all pagan nations, while containing some articles 
worthy of admiration, were sullied with many serious 
faults. "Plato, one of the noblest minds of antiquity, 
proposed in his Philosophical Republic that the off- 
spring of inferior citizens, and children with imperfect 
limbs, be buried alive in an obscure and unknown 
place. Aristotle suggests infanticide as a means of 
checking the rapid growth of population. There is 
reason to believe that infanticide prevailed in Italy, 
as well as in Greece, from the earliest times. A law 
of Romulus forbade the exposing of children before 
they were three days old, which proves that the 
custom of exposing them as soon as they were born 
had prevailed before." (Principle of Population, by 
Malthus, p. 114-115-118.) The same custom prevailed 
among many nations of antiquity. What does this 
prove? That murder was legalized by the statutes of 
the most enlightened pagan nations, and sanctioned 
by the authority of the ablest philosophers, statesmen, 
and political economists. 

The Divine Commandment declares, "Thou shalt 



Lecture VII. 131 

not kill," and it values the life of the babe as highly 
as the life of an adult. 

"One of the commandments said they should not 
make any graven things ; and that was the death of art 
in Palestine. No sculpture has ever enriched stone 
with divine forms of beauty in that country; and any 
commandment that is the death of art is not a good 
commandment." 

This assertion of Mr. Ingersoll's is not founded on 
truth. In the first place, I must state that sculpture 
is only one of the various forms of art; and, therefore, 
presuming for the sake of argument, that God did 
prohibit the making of images, he did not mention 
painting, music, and poetry, which constitute the fine 
arts; and no reference is made to the useful arts. 
Therefore his words could not have destroyed art in 
Palestine. But the first commandment forbade the 
Israelites to make images for idolatrous purposes, like 
the nations of antiquity, as we learn from the second 
part of the precept, which is explanatory of the pre- 
ceding lines: "Thou shalt not adore them or serve 
them." (Exodus xxvi, 5.) This interpretation is 
amply sustained by other texts from the same book; 
for we read in the twenty-fifth chapter that "Thou 
shalt also make two cherubims of beaten gold on the 
two sides of the oracle. Let one cherub be on one 
side, and one on the other. Let them cover both 
sides of the propitiatory." (Exodus xxv, 18-20.) 
"And the Lord said, Make a brazen serpent, and set 
it up for a sign. Moses therefore made a brazen ser- 
pent." (Numbers xxi, 8, 9.) "And for the altar of 
the incense he gave the purest gold; and to make 
the likeness of the chariot of the cherub." (First 



132 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

Chron. xxviii, 18.) "He also made in the house of the 
holy of holies two cherubims of image work." 
(Second Chron. iii, 10.) These quotations will suffice 
to disprove the statement that God enjoined the sons 
of Abraham not to make images, or that he interfered 
with the cultivation of art. The hundreds of vessels 
used in the Mosaic ritual, together with the wealth, 
beauty, and sublimity of Solomon's temple, are in- 
vincible arguments that the prohibition extended 
merely to the practice of rendering homage and ado- 
ration to the works of human genius. That there was 
reason for such an admonition is evinced by the fact 
that the voice of God's thunder had scarcely ceased 
to roar amid the lurid flames of Sinai when the hosts 
of Israel had fallen prostrate before the golden calf. 

When the Bible says that Canaan was inhabited 
by seven nations mightier than Israel, it is probable 
that the sacred writer referred to the gigantic stature 
of those people, which is spoken of by the spies sent 
to reconnoiter. Again, he might have alluded to their 
combined forces making a total outnumbering the 
hosts that followed Josue across the Jordan; and 
hence it occurs to my mind that there is no ground 
for Mr. Ingersoll's strictures on the possibility of 
Palestine to support twenty-one millions of people. 

The agnostic does not think that "God ever came 
down to Mount Sinai with a lot of patterns for mak- 
ing a tabernacle, patterns for tongs, etc. Do you be- 
lieve that God told Moses how to cut a coat, and how 
it should be trimmed," etc.? 

I do not think it would be blasphemy to differ 
with the Colonel; and I can not conceive any more 
incongruity in God's giving orders for the establish- 



Lecture VII. 133 

ment and the furniture of his dwelling-place than I 
would discover in Mr. Ingersoll's looking over the 
plans and specifications of a new residence that he 
contemplates building, and selecting carpets for his 
floors, and shades and curtains for his windows. 
There were so many pagan symbols used by the 
nations of antiquity and the tribes of the Orient that 
God wished to safeguard his people from the possi- 
bility of idolatry by reminding them in all their rites 
and ceremonies of the Divine Unity and Personality. 
Milman writes: "The worship of God on mountain- 
tops, otherwise an innocent custom, was proscribed 
on account of the abominations committed in these 
places during their festivities by the Canaanitish 
tribes." The same author tells us that "no grove 
might be planted near the altar of the Holy One of 
Israel; the strictest personal purity was enjoined on 
the priests; the prohibition against prostituting their 
daughters, as well as that which forbids the woman 
to appear in the dress of the man, the man in that 
of the woman, are no doubt pointed against the same 
impure ceremonies. All the vulgar arts of priest- 
craft, divination, witchcraft, were proscribed. Even 
a certain form of tonsure, certain parti-colored dresses, 
and other peculiar customs of the heathen priesthood 
were specially forbidden." (History of the Jews, 

P- 63.) 

Samuel Burder, in his note on the passage of 
Deuteronomy prohibiting woman to wear man's 
clothes, etc., writes: "This prohibitory law seems di- 
rected against an idolatrous usage which appears to 
be as ancient as Moses, and which, later writers in- 
form us, was to be found among several nations in 



134 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

after times, and that, too, attended with the most 
abominable practices. From Plutarch we learn that 
the Egyptians called the moon the mother of the 
world, and assigned to her the nature both male and 
female; and Boyse says of Diana, Luna, or the moon, 
that the Egyptians worshiped this deity both as male 
and female ; the men sacrificing to it as Luna, and the 
women as Lunus, and each sex on these occasions 
assuming the dress of the other." (Josephus, An- 
tiquities of the Jews, note, p. 138.) 

There is not a ceremony connected with the Jew- 
ish sacrifice and priesthood that is not full of signifi- 
cance, and if Mr. Ingersoll had studied the Bible 
instead of peeping at the cover, he would refrain from 
the silly comments which are the true characteristics 
of charlatanry. 

Dress very often conveys a deep meaning. Dur- 
ing the late war the blue represented the soldier of 
the Stars and Stripes, and the gray was the uniform 
of those who fought under the Stars and Bars. The 
tri-color distinguished the Republican from the 
Monarchist in the days of the French Revolution. 

Mr. Ingersoll can not see how the people could 
produce enough flax in the desert to make the linen 
curtains for the Tabernacle; for he imagines that 
Arabia is a wild and rocky waste. If he had read 
John D. Baldwin, one of the best authorities of the 
age, he would have learned that "Arabia could have 
supported one hundred millions of people as easily 
as France now sustains forty millions." (Pre-historic 
Nations, p. 73.) Had he consulted J. W. Buel, he 
would have learned where the Israelites procured the 
gold and silver and precious stones for their sacrificial 



Lecture VII. 135 

utensils and for the ornamentation of the Tabernacle. 
Writing of ancient Arabia, the temporary abode of 
Israel, Buel says: "The palace built by King Sheddah 
at Aden had walls whose bricks consisted of silver 
and gold, whose roof was gold, inlaid with pearls and 
precious stones, and whose interior decoration and 
furnishing was carried out upon the same scale of 
extravagant magnificence. The palace was sur- 
rounded by gardens whose trees were partly natural 
and partly the work of art. The fragrance which 
loaded the air from the trees, shrubs, and flowers of 
rarest perfume, was brought into rivalry with that 
of the beauty of plants, of gold and silver, whose flow- 
ers and fruits were rubies, sapphires, and other gems, 
upon whose branches perched birds of gold, and 
whose stems were converted into spraying fountains 
of perfumes." (Story of Man, p. 358.) And this is 
the country where there were no gold and silver and 
precious stones! 

Mr. Ingersoll can not believe that "their clothes 
did not wax old, and that they grew right along with 
them." 

Various commentaries have been written on this 
question; but I will answer it briefly by stating that 
I can not see in this passage anything more remark- 
able than the growth and durability of the epidermis, 
or the extension of the hide that envelops the animal, 
and the increase in the size of a spot on the back of 
a cow. 

The Colonel speaks of the flood, and brings in 
many objections of insignificance. 

In the first place, I will state that the universality 
of the Deluge is an open question, and Christians 



136 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

may entertain their private views on this subject with- 
out conflicting with the statements of Genesis. It is 
true that universal terms are employed in giving a 
description of the Deluge. "It is all men, every liv- 
ing creature, the whole earth that are to be destroyed/* 
as Dr. Zahn writes. The learned author of "Bible and 
Science" proves that nothing is of more frequent use 
in the Old Testament than the employment of uni- 
versal for particular terms. The same peculiarity is 
observed in the New Testament, but not to such an 
extent as in the Old. It is characteristic of all 
Oriental languages to use hyperbole, and at the same 
time in a way that we should pronounce extravagant. 
St. Augustine observes in a letter to St. Paulinus, of 
Nola, that it is the custom of Scripture to speak of the 
part as of the whole. He likewise states that it is 
frequently necessary to explain the word all in 
a restricted sense. In speaking of the famine which 
prevailed at the time of Jacob, Moses declares that 
"the famine prevailed in the whole world, the famine 
increased daily in all the land, and all provinces came 
to Egypt to buy food." None of these passages are 
to be taken literally. Again, "All the earth desired 
to see Solomon's face, and to hear his wisdom." The 
same explanation is to be given to those passages in 
the New Testament where it is said that the people 
from all countries were in Jerusalem on Pentecost 
Sunday. In the Apocalypse, St. John says that when 
Enoch and Elias shall have been slain, their bodies 
shall be unburied for three days in the great city, 
and all the inhabitants of the earth shall come to see 
them. In all of these quotations, and in hundreds of 
others that could be easily adduced, the universal 



Lecture VII. 137 

term is employed to convey the sense of the particular, 
or the whole is used for the part. "The Deluge 
was a means of preserving intact the patriarchal line 
from which was to descend the Redeemer of the 
world; it was a necessity in order that the sons of 
God might be preserved from contamination by 
association with the daughters of men." (Bible and 
Science, Zahn, p. 160.) And the erudite scientist in- 
forms us that "Moses intentionally ignored the Cam- 
ites and the descendants of other children of Adam." 
His object was to show the genealogy of the patri- 
archs from Noah through Seth to Adam. After the 
Deluge he deals only with Noah and the unbroken 
line as descended from him. "That there were among 
the mountains of Central Asia the descendants of 
Cain and other children of Adam, he may or may not 
have known. He was not writing a history of the 
world. He was tracing out a synopsis of the history 
of the Hebrew people, the chosen people of the Lord, 
the sons of God. To him all who were not Hebrews 
were Goim." (Bible and Science, Zahn, p. 161.) 
(Noachian Deluge, from page 120 to 174.) 

If we regard the Deluge as only partial, every 
difficulty of a scientific nature will immediately dis- 
appear. It will not be necessary for the "polar bear 
to leave his home of ice, and start for the tropics 
inquiring for Noah." It will not be necessary to put 
"eleven hundred thousand insects into the ark," and 
to collect these without the assistance of a "micro- 
scope," and all the various animals that live upon 
the earth. 

Then Mr. Ingersoll says, "Why, if the flood was 
partial, was it necessary to put the birds in the ark? 



138 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. - 

An ordinary bird, tending strictly to business, can 
beat a partial flood." 

The birds and all other fowls, together with the 
animals, were preserved in the ark for the purpose 
of keeping the species in that locality, so that when 
Noah would take possession of the land, he would 
not be compelled to wander to India or some other 
far distant country to procure these beasts and birds. 
We have every reason to believe that only useful 
animals and fowls, such as the camel, cow, pigeon, 
dove, etc., were inclosed in the ark; and hence it was 
not necessary for God to inspire the wild, carnivorous 
mammalia, the reptiles, elephants, mastodons, and 
animalcules to seek refuge from the storm within 
the ark. 



LECTURE VIII. 

NOW Mr. Ingersoll refers to the stopping of the 
sun by Josue, and he says that "the sun throws 
out every second of time as much heat as could be 
generated by burning eleven hundred million tons 
of coal." 

Yet that does not prove that the said heat would 
affect the earth to that extent. Remember that the 
earth is but a single orb in the solar system, and but 
a mere speck in the vast realm of space through which 
the beams of the sun are scattered. The earth is 
ninety-one millions of miles from the sun, and its 
orbit is five hundred and seventy-five million miles. 
Multiply this latter sum by forty-six million, half the 
radius of the circle formed by the earth's orbit, and 
this will give you the earth's ecliptic; and yet this 
is but an insignificant portion of those immense fields 
flooded by the solar rays. 

Radiant heat diminishes in intensity as the square 
of the distance from the radiating body increases. 
A body ten feet from a fire will receive only one- 
hundredth part as much heat from it that a body one 
foot will receive. If we divide the heat engendered 
at the sun's surface by the square of ninety-one mil- 
lion, the distance of the earth from the sun, we will 
have the amount of heat diffused through space at a 
distance of ninety-one million miles from the sun. 
The square of 91,000,000 is 8,281,000,000,000,000, 
and this, divided into 11,000,000,000,000, the amount 
of heat engendered at the surface, will give 1/753 for 

i39 



140 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

a quotient ; that is, the amount of heat diffused through 
space at a distance of ninety-one million miles from 
the sun would be sufficient to burn in one second 
1/753 P art of a ton of coal, or about eleven and one- 
half tons of coal in twenty-four hours. 

To discover the amount of heat that would strike 
the earth, we must find the surface of the imaginary 
sphere that would be formed in the heaven by taking 
the earth's distance from the sun as the radius of that 
sphere. To find the surface of a sphere, we multiply 
the circumference by the diameter. To find the cir- 
cumference of a circle, we multiply the diameter by 
3.1416. The diameter of the circle in question is 
182,000,000, being twice the radius. This sum mul- 
tiplied by 3.1416 gives 571,771,200, and this multi- 
plied again by 182,000,000 gives 104,062,358,400,000,- 
000. There are 23,000 pounds of coal in 11J tons. 
Dividing 23,000 by 104,062,358,400,000,000=23/104,- 
062,358,400,000. This is the fractional part of a pound 
of coal that the heat of the sun would consume if the 
earth should cease to revolve for a period of twenty- 
four hours, which would not be sufficient to produce 
suffocation. I have figured this out according to the 
law of radiant heat. 

More than a hundred }^ears ago Voltaire brought 
this same objection against Christianity; however, he 
did not go so far as Ingersoll, for he said that the heat 
generated by the stopping of the earth would be suf- 
ficient to overcome the soldiers in battle. DuClot 
then answered the objection, that the increase of tem- 
perature could have been modified by winds and 
clouds. Voltaire said that stopping the earth would 
interfere with eclipses. DuClot replied that the rotary 



Lecture VIII. 14 1 

motion of the earth could cease without having any 
bearing on the annual motion of the earth in its orbit, 
and therefore cause no confusion in the solar system. 

Mr. Ingersoll says that "it has been calculated 
by one of the best mathematicians and astronomers 
that to stop the world would cause as much heat as 
it would take to burn a lump of coal three times as 
big as the globe." 

What mathematician and astronomer made that 
statement? Until Mr. Ingersoll gives his authority, 
his assertion does not deserve notice. I presume that 
Mr. Ingersoll pretends to prove that it is the rotary 
movement of the earth, constantly presenting a new 
surface to the rays of the sun, that prevents ignition. 
Is it not strange that his principle has such little in- 
fluence at the poles, where there is no diurnal move- 
ment, and where the heat is not sufficient to melt the 
ice that gathers there during the long winter nights? 
Perhaps Mr. Ingersoll will say that the obliquity of 
the rays nullifies the heat. I admit, the reason is 
plausible; but I fail to see that the perpendicular 
radiation of one day would be a million times greater 
than the oblique radiation of six months. 

According to Mr. Ingersoll's theory, heat increases 
as the velocity of the diurnal motion of the earth di- 
minishes. Now, the sun is vertical to the Tropic 
of Cancer on the twenty-first day of June, and, the 
circle of the globe at that point being much shorter 
than the equator, the rotary motion of the earth is 
much slower. Hence, during the latter part of June 
it should be warmer at the Tropic of Cancer than 
at the equator during the last of March. But such 
is not the case, as a glance at the isothermal lines on 



142 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

the map will show. Climate not only depends on 
latitude, but also on elevation, winds, oceanic currents, 
and mountain ranges. Gibbon, in his "History of 
Rome," claims that Southern Europe was colder in 
the early part of the Christian era than Northern 
Europe to-day; and he attributes this mutation of 
temperature to the fact that, primeval forests having 
been removed by the hand of civilization, the solar 
rays now strike the earth directly, and heat is ab- 
sorbed and reflected. 

Again, the diurnal movement of the earth could 
have been altered so as to prolong the day and avoid 
the consequences referred to in Mr. Ingersoll's lec- 
ture. God could have turned the earth back at the 
setting of the sun to the rising, and thus produce a 
day of thirty-six hours' duration. Furthermore, the 
earth could have been illuminated by the refraction 
of light, or the creation of an artificial day. As 
Palestine is north of the equator, God could have 
turned the North Pole toward the sun, and light 
would have illuminated the Northern Hemisphere as 
long as the earth was in that position. I have already 
quoted the ablest author of the age for the statement 
that the rays of the sun fell vertically on the North 
Pole for an entire age, generating the tropical plants, 
which form the immense coal-fields in the regions 
of the Arctic Circle. If Mr. Perce is correct in his 
theory — and we have every reason to believe that 
he is — then Mr. Ingersoll's averment that the sun's 
rays, falling perpendicularly on any stationary por- 
tion of the earth, would produce ignition, is dis- 
proved. 

I feel perfectly satisfied that astronomy will bear 



Lecture VIII. H3 

out every statement that I have made in reference 
to the solar heat felt by the earth; and there is no 
ground for departing from the literal meaning of the 
Scriptural narration, that Josue made the sun stand 
still for a whole day. Of course it is understood that 
the sacred author used the language of the time, and 
that his words signify that the earth ceased to revolve 
on its axis. Mr. Ingersoll wishes to know why it was 
necessary to stop the moon. If he understood astron- 
omy as well as he pretends, he would know that the 
moon is a satellite of the earth, and revolves around 
the latter, so as to reach the same point relatively to 
the fixed stars, in a little more than twenty-seven 
days. Therefore, the stationary position of the earth 
would cause the relative position of the moon to 
appear stationary. 

"The telescope, in reading the infinite leaves of 
heaven, has ascertained that light travels at the rate 
of one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per 
second, and it would require millions of years to come 
from some of those stars to the earth. If those distant 
stars were fashioned when this world began, we must 
have been whirling in space not six thousand, but 
many millions of years." 

This assertion proves nothing against the truth 
of Biblical statements. Authors belonging to the 
Christian Church in nearly every age have had their 
private views about the six days of creation; and 
Christianity and Judaism do not teach that the world 
is not more ancient than six thousand years. Ac- 
cording to the Genesiac account, as I have clearly 
shown, the six days can be regarded as six periods; 
for a day in the Scriptural sense is frequently used 



144 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

to designate an epoch, or an age. Each of these 
periods might have been millions of years in duration. 
The Mosaic narration does not signify any particular 
time for the ages of creation. Nor is it contrary to 
Christian doctrine or the words of Genesis to hold 
that God endowed matter with the germs of life and 
the principle of development, and allowed it to evolve 
the plants and animals during the slow process of 
aeons. However, not only the Bible, but reason, 
condemns the theory of the extreme evolutionists, who 
hold that matter itself, and by its nature, is capable 
of producing all the varied forms of life. Nemo dat 
quod non habet, — Nobody gives what he has not. Mat- 
ter is inert, and therefore does not contain the organic 
principle of the vegetable kingdom; and organic 
creation does not contain irrational life; and reason 
is beyond the limits of the latter. Hence, if we hold 
the theory of development, we are constrained by the 
voice of reason to discard the absurd notion that 
matter is capable of giving birth to the various forms 
of plant, animal, and human life, and admit the ne- 
cessity of God's creative power. 

But do we see in the latest discoveries of science 
any indication of transition from inorganic to organic 
matter, and from animal to human life? Dr. Zahn 
says that Hackel endeavored to span the chasm be- 
between inorganic and organic matter by the invention 
of the Moneron, and he was compelled to retract his 
boast that he had found the missing link, in the pres- 
ence of the British Association for the Advancement 
of Science, assembled at Sheffield. The learned 
author of the "Bible, Faith, and Science," has ably 
proved that the two missing links have never been 



Lecture VIII. 145 

supplied by the researches of ages. "The nearest 
living analogue of this primitive form of protoplasm 
is, Hackel assures us, the ill-starred bathybius of 
Huxley. To bridge over the chasm between the ir- 
rational and the rational, between animals and man, 
they invented the anthropoid, or the pithecanthrope, 
the speechless man-ape, of which, like so many other 
links in Hackel's genealogical chain, there is not the 
slightest trace in geology or paleontology/' (Zahn, 
Bible and Science, p. 226.) 

Darwin, in his "Origin of the Species," has utilized 
every illustration in nature to substantiate his theory 
of evolution, but without success. He has furnished 
ample argument for the establishment of variety in 
the same species ; but he has made a lamentable failure 
in his efforts to show the transition from one species 
to another. The rats in the Mammoth Cave, he 
writes, lost their eyes by the disuse of the organ of 
sight, and on the same principle he contends that an 
organ or faculty is brought to perfection by employ- 
ment. Yet the perfection of a being does not change 
its nature. Shakespeare was the giant of his age, 
and perhaps the world has never seen his peer, and 
yet the untutored savage, living in the wilds of Africa, 
or the lacustrine inhabitant of remote ages, possessed 
the same essential elements of human nature as the 
immortal poet of English drama. "But a little reflec- 
tion will suffice to teach us that the monists and trans- 
formists, whose views we have been considering, have 
method in their madness. They assume evolution, 
in the sense in which they teach it, to be true, and to 
rest on an impregnable basis of fact. They assume, 
also, that matter is eternal, because science, by which 



146 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

they mean physics, can tell us nothing, because it 
knows nothing, of creation. They pin their faith to 
spontaneous generation because their theory demands 
it. Tf we do not,' says Hackel, 'accept the hypoth- 
esis of spontaneous generation, then at this one point 
in the history of development we must have recourse 
to the miracle of supernatural creation.' ,; (Zahn, 
Bible and Science, p. 228.) 

The only question in which the Bible and science 
are at variance in any way is the age of the human 
race; and this conflict is more apparent than real. 
Scientific critics assume too many things as granted, 
which are open for discussion. For instance, they 
discover in history that the human race used at 
different times implements made of stone, bronze, and 
iron; and they conclude that there must have been 
a stone age, a bronze age, and an iron age. They 
also suppose that an indefinite period must have inter- 
vened between each of these ages. Dr. Zahn has ably 
demonstrated that these are very uncertain criteria, 
since these ages are not defined by distinct lines of 
demarkation, but often overlap each other, and not 
infrequently co-exist. This fact is brought out by 
James Geikie in his admirable work on Pre-historic 
Europe. (See pages 5-24.) We know from history 
that stone utensils are used in one part of the world, 
when iron is almost exclusively used in another; and 
while civilized nations to-day utilize iron for various 
purposes, wild, savage tribes are still unacquainted 
with the means of smelting, and their weapons are 
rude implements of stone. 

Lake dwellings and cave dwellings offer no de- 
cisive evidence in behalf of human antiquity; for, like 



Lecture VIII. i47 

the periods of stone, bronze, and iron, their limits are 
not accurately denned. History is unable to pass 
judgment on the question; for when we go back a 
few thousand years, we move in mist and darkness, 
and we can not see our way. Baldwin says there is 
no correct chronology among the ancients, and we 
can not depend on the few broken and shattered 
records of dates that we find among the works of 
Egyptian, Chaldaic, and Hebrew historians. 

"Any system of chronology that places man four 
thousand or five thousand years before Christ is a 
mere invention. Those who profess to find it in the 
Bible, misuse and falsify that book. We may as well 
seek in the Bible for a perfected science of astronomy 
or chemistry." (Pre-historic Nations, p. 26-27.) 
Zahn has proved that we can carry the history of man, 
by means of Biblical chronology, back nine thousand 
years; and he points out a number of intermissions 
in genealogical records, and, basing his premises on 
the hypothesis that there are many more omissions 
of which we are ignorant, we might be able to trace 
the history of humanity as far into the shadows of an- 
tiquity, as would be necessary to meet every difficulty 
of "geology, paleontology, and climatology." As 
the discussion of this question is beyond my province, 
I will refer my hearers to Dr. Zahn's "Bible and 
Science," and Perce's "Genesis and Modern Science," 
where the difficulties are ably answered and objections 
logically refuted. 

Mr. Ingersoll claims that "the Bible was originally 
written in the Hebrew language, and the Hebrew 
language at that time had no vowels in writing. It 
was entirely in consonants." And he claims that 



148 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

"if you write a sentence without vowels, it would take 
twice as much inspiration to read as to write it." 

He herein admits that the original works of the 
Bible are very ancient, since he carries the origin of 
those books back to a period when consonants were 
used entirely in the Hebrew language. We learn from 
Chambers's Encyclopedia, under the head of "Semitic 
Languages," the following statement: "First of all, 
we notice the preponderance given in Semitic to con- 
sonants in contradistinction to the vowels. The for- 
mer are indeed the basis and body of the words. The 
vowels are more or less accessories, modifying, fixing, 
precising the meaning, but never themselves contain- 
ing it." This is quite different from Mr. Ingersoll' s 
statement. 

"Is there a man or woman here who believes in 
the institution of polygamy? You say you do not. 
Then you are better than your God was four thousand 
years ago." 

In the first place, Mr. Ingersoll admits in this 
passage that the Pentateuch has an antiquity of four 
thousand years and is coeval with the age of Moses, 
which fact he repudiates in other places. This is 
another exemplification of his inconsistency. Mr. 
Ingersoll must have known that the book of Genesis 
contained the doctrine of monogamy. In the second 
chapter we learn that "Adam said, This now is bone 
of my bone, and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called 
woman, because she was taken out of man." God 
made the female from a rib to signify that she came 
from the heart of man, the seat of affection; she 
should be forever loved and cherished by her com- 
panion; and, being taken from his side, she should 



Lecture VIII. 149 

be his equal, and not his slave. The very mode 
of creation symbolizes that undivided love and 
equal liberty were sacred rights of woman, and 
that the dutiful wife should never be molested 
in her sovereignty over the heart and soul of 
her husband by the fascinations and allurements of 
rival beauties. "Wherefore a man shall leave his fa- 
ther and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and 
they shall be two in one flesh." Could the condem- 
nation of polygamy be expressed in stronger and more 
forcible language? 

The kind father who labored day after day, in sun- 
shine and shower, in pelting snow and hail and sleet 
and frost, and saved his hard-earned money to buy the 
little cottage that you called home; the kind father 
who made so many sacrifices to add more and more 
to this humble beginning, that he might preserve you 
from want, distress, and poverty; the kind father who 
was so careful about your health, who would enter 
your chamber after a hard day's toil, and sit by your 
bedside and watched you while you slept, — that father, 
says God, is not to be preferred to the gentle maiden 
whom you have selected for your earthly idol, to 
whom you have made so many promises when you 
took her from the home of her parents, and led her 
to the altar, and there exchanged words of everlasting- 
fidelity. 

If there be any word in human language that 
can be taken for the synonym of love and affection, 
that word is mother. So great is the love of a mother's 
heart that Christ compares it to the infinite love of 
God. It is the mother that hears the first faint cry 
of our infancy, and listens to the last solemn moan 



150 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

and heavy sigh of our final moments. Mother's heart 
weeps and bleeds with the sorrows and agonies of her 
sons, and it is mother's face that is filled with joy 
as tides of merry laughter roll over the dimpled cheeks 
and ruby lips of her daughters. And yet God says 
that a man shall leave this fond mother and cleave 
to his wife. It is palpable that God condemned polyg- 
amy from the beginning, and he never sanctioned, 
upheld, or taught it; but, as we learn from the Inspired 
Volume, he merely tolerated the practice on account 
of the "hardness of their hearts." It was a custom 
that prevailed in the Orient and among peoples of the 
ancient world; and God, wishing to prevent the greater 
evils of infidelity and adultery, allowed the usage of 
polygamy. 

Why is polygamy wrong? It is not antagonistic 
to any law of nature. It is not forbidden by the dic- 
tates of reason. Marriage has been instituted for the 
propagation of the human race, and polygamy does 
not nullify this purpose. Is it against propriety? 
Where do we get this sense of propriety? From the 
teachings and practices of Christianity. Mr. Ingersoll, 
living under the benign influence of the doctrines of 
the Nazarene, who restored the original precept of 
the Creator, elevated matrimony to the dignity of a 
sacrament, and placed the female on that lofty pedes- 
tal where she reigns and receives the incense and 
homage of the world; Mr. Ingersoll, having uncon- 
sciously imbibed the lofty conception of the Christian 
Church about domestic happiness and connubial bliss, 
the love of wife and husband, the affection of parents, 
and the docility and obedience of children, turns the 
weapons of the Son against the Father, and denounces 



Lecture VIII. 151 

God for permitting polygamy, whose repulsiveness 
would never have been known to the agnostic had he 
been educated in a land of infidelity and lived in an 
atmosphere of atheism. 

In the Mosaic code the chastity of females was 
guarded by penal statutes. The adulterer and adul- 
teress were stoned to death. There was more fidelity, 
more chastity, more affection, obedience and submis- 
sion, peace and happiness, among the polygamous 
Israelites than among many nations to-day, who be- 
lieve in the doctrine of monogamy, and denounce the 
abominations of the ancient usage that prevailed in 
Palestine. Abortion and infanticide were not specif- 
ically forbidden by the statutes' of Moses, because 
these crimes were unknown among the Jews. 

Josephus, appealing with honest pride to the prac- 
tice of his countrymen, reproaches other nations with 
these cruelties. 

"God says if any one differs with you about relig- 
ion, kill him." 

We know from reason that God is the creator of 
heaven and earth, that he gives and takes away life. 
God has clothed the earth with meadow, wood, and 
grove, and filled the sea, land, and air with fishes, 
beasts, and birds. He sends frost and snow, sunshine 
and shower, to fertilize the fields and moisten and 
warm them into life and fruitfulness. He gives the 
seasons with all their advantages, and purifies the 
atmosphere with storm and cloud and flame. Man 
could not live a single moment if Divine providence 
were withdrawn. God could put forth his hand and 
impede or accelerate the speed of the celestial globes, 
and planet would collide with planet, and system 



152 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

would roll into system, until the starry host would 
be gathered into a mighty ball of fire. Since Divine 
Omnipotence was at liberty to create the universe, 
or leave it in the boundless ocean of possibilities, it 
does not require the genius and learning of a phi- 
losopher to understand that God has supreme do- 
minion over every creature that walks upon the earth, 
and flies on the breath of the morning breeze, and 
swims through the waves of the deep, and wanders 
in yon distant zones of space that are flooded with 
the beams of a thousand suns. 

The slightest acquaintance with the law of nature 
and the laws of nations will be sufficient to teach an 
intelligent mind that order prevails only by the sub- 
servience of the less to the greater, and by this adap- 
tation of the various parts we rise in our contemplation 
to the idea of that beautiful subordination, beginning 
with the lowest, and extending through every kind 
of matter and every form of life, and culminating in 
the realization of perfect harmony. On this same 
principle we, as rational beings, knowing our depend- 
ence on the Creator, should offer him Our homage. 

The majesty of God is proclaimed in the song of 
the bird and the hum of the bee; in the sigh of the 
wood and the dirge of the sea; in the splendor of the 
sun and the glitter of the stars; in the tender foot- 
steps of the dawn and the silvery rays laden with the 
breath of morn; in the golden clouds that deck the 
brow of Phoebus when his flaming steeds have finished 
their course, and in the shining belts where the heralds 
of the night respond to the smiles of Apollo. But in- 
animate nature and irrational life can render no intel- 
ligent worship to their Creator. Man is the cul- 



Lecture VIII. 153 

mination of terrestrial life, the glory of mundane 
creation; and being endowed with reason, he is the 
representative of all other forms of existence. Being 
composed of body and soul, he partakes of the nature 
of matter and mind. Therefore, it is his duty to render 
homage to the Almighty for the thousand gifts that 
adorn his being. It is his duty to catch the notes 
of silent nature, the voices of the universe, and weave 
them into chaplets of prayer and songs of praise, and 
present them to the golden throne of the Eternal One 
as the oblation of blind matter and senseless life. By 
reason of his existence man is subject to the Monarch 
of Creation; and disobedience is rebellion, and apos- 
tasy treason. 

The Israelites were enthralled in Egypt; and God 
overthrew the despots that ruled them, broke the man- 
acles that fettered them, and led them through the sea 
into the wilderness, and across the Jordan into the 
promised land, where they lived upon the luscious 
fruits and abundant harvests that flourished beneath 
the purple skies of the Orient. He fed them for forty 
years in the desert with the food of angels; he changed 
the hard rock into a living fountain that sent forth its 
silvery drops to slake their thirst; he guided the foot- 
steps of their armies to meet the enemy in battle array ; 
he filled their trumpets with magic sounds that swept 
away the massive walls of fortified cities, and he smote 
the mighty hosts of Canaan that disputed the rights 
of the Abrahamic race. He terrified the tribes of the 
South, and chained the lions of the North, and secured 
the boundaries of the East and West against the in- 
cursions of savage hordes and martial nations. There- 
fore, God was the King of Israel by the title of their 



154 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

creation and conservation, their liberation from slav- 
ery and their political birth, and their establishment 
in a country free from every foreign yoke, every servile 
subjection, and every tribute to alien powers. Aban- 
donment of the divinely-established religion was not 
only a crime against the Creator, but it was treason 
against a temporal sovereign. In all countries treason 
is a capital offense, and the traitor's life is the penalty 
of his deed. 

We read in Spanish history that Count Julian was 
one of the noblest and bravest men that ever fought 
for his country. Don Roderick, the Goth, sent him 
on a mission to Africa, where he protected the interest 
of his king, and repelled the mighty wave of Moslem 
power that swept across the sands of the desert to the 
very walls of Ceuta. He defeated the gallant efforts 
of Aber Ben Nosier, and the fame of his prowess was 
echoing through the land of the Goth, from the Pillars 
of Hercules to Cantabria's gray rocks and vineclad 
peaks, when a messenger arrived with the tidings of 
his daughter's sorrows. The count had left his beauti- 
ful Florinda, a maiden yet in tender years, at the 
royal castle, under the tutelage of the crowned head. 
Her charms had fascinated the heart of Don Roderick, 
and fanned his passions into flames that could only 
be quelled with the sacrifice of the maiden's virginity. 
Count Julian swore that the insult should not go 
unpunished; and as the king was beyond his power, 
he devised the foul scheme of blasting his country's 
glory that he might humble the pride of Roderick, 
and perhaps render just retribution by dispatching 
his life in a bloody encounter on the field of battle. 
He sought reconciliation with the Mussulman Caliph, 



Lecture VIII. 155 

and offered him his aid in the subjugation of Spain; 
and thus began that war with the Moorish legions 
that terminated with the enthronement of the Arab in 
the Alhambra, and the rise of the Crescent in the 
serene skies of fair Andalusia. Though a just cause 
actuated the hero of Ceuta in his dark designs, yet 
Count Julian, the brave, the dauntless, the noble, has 
been known in Gothic songs and legends for more 
than a thousand years as "Julian the Apostate, and 
Julian the Traitor," and his name will ever be linked 
with infamy and dishonor until every Spanish tongue 
shall cease to speak, and every Spanish heart shall 
cease to beat. Kings, queens, princes, and sovereigns, 
the bravest generals, and the ablest statesmen have 
perished on the block and the scaffold whenever the 
charge of treason against them has been substantiated. 

What right has Mr. Ingersoll to prefer accusations 
of cruelty against any monarch whose laws demand 
the execution of the traitor? Does he uphold the 
crime? Is he an anarchist, a rebel? Let him, then, 
say nothing about the severity of the Mosaic code, 
which decreed the penalty of death against those 
persons who had violated the constitution and had 
broken the allegiance they had sworn to their King 
and Leader, that transformed them from a state of 
degradation to an independent national existence. 

"If you had lived in Palestine at that time, and 
your wife, the mother of your children, had woke up 
at night and said: 'I am tired of Jehovah; he is always 
turning up that board-bill; he is always talking about 
whipping the Egyptians; he is always killing some- 
body; — let us worship the sun. The sun clothed the 
world in beauty; it has covered the earth with green 



156 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

and flowers; by its divine light I first saw your face; 
its light has enabled me to look into the eyes of my 
beautiful babe. Let us worship the sun, father and 
mother of light and joy/ Then what would be your 
duty to do? Kill her?" 

Let us suppose that the husband, listening to this 
display of rhetoric, would have said to his erring wife : 
"You are mistaken in your idea about the power of 
the sun; its existence is the work of the Creator, who 
said, 'Let there be light,' and thousands of dazzling 
systems rolled into the universe, and sent their golden 
beams to brush aside the frowns of night, and to kiss 
the rose-lipped dawn and smiling day. Without the 
beneficence of God the earth would never have been 
gladdened by a gleam of light; it would never have 
been decked with flower, leaf, and herb. It is God's 
flaming orb, that warms the chilly wave into floating 
vapors; it is the breath of God's tempest that wafts 
the flying clouds to arid lands, and cools the burning 
plain with celestial tears. Divine Munificence has 
clothed thy face in beauty, and wreathed it into 
smiles of joy. God's blessings have crimsoned thy 
cheeks with the bloom of health, and robed thy brow 
with a wealth of golden tresses. In the silvery waves 
of God's light I have beheld the radiance of thy coun- 
tenance and the beauty of thy divine form." Would 
the wretch that consciously transfers every blessing 
of Divine providence to the works of Divine Omnip- 
otence be entitled to the countless favors that come 
on every ray of light and every breath of air, and in the 
blush of every morn, and in the glory of every eve, 
and the labor of every day, and the rest of every 



Lecture VIII. 157 

night, and the warmth of every spring, and the fruit 
of every autumn, and the harvest of every summer, 
and the snows of every winter? Justly, therefore, did 
God take away the temporal life of the ungrateful 
apostate; and the law of every nation would have 
done the same under similar circumstances. 

"I guess the Bible was not inspired about religious 
liberty." 

Now, what does he understand by liberty? The 
right to do anything? Then man has a right to 
murder and steal, and when the assassin takes the life 
of your father, and appropriates your wealth, you 
must not complain, for he is exercising the right to 
do whatever adds perfection, to his being. Perfection 
consists in the employment of powers and the develop- 
ment of faculties. We say that the learned and vir- 
tuous man is perfect, because he has cultivated his 
mental and moral capacity. Truth is the object of 
the intellect, and goodness is the object of the will. 
The mind can not accept error, nor can the will accept 
evil. It is the province of the intellect to discover 
truth, to distinguish between good and evil, and to 
present them to the will, telling the latter that this 
object is detrimental to human nature, and the other 
is advantageous; and the will decides' between the 
two. Man chooses what is wrong, not because he 
likes it, but because the mind, clouded by the fumes 
of passion, overestimates the value of the transient, 
organic pleasure of an act, and forgets its disastrous 
results and the ameliorating consequences of the op- 
posite. Liberty consists in the right to know the 
truth, and to love, pursue, and possess goodness; and 



158 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

the man who ignores the one, or avoids the other, is 
the vilest slave, though he might have all the learning 
of Aristotle and all the wisdom of Solomon. 

God is eternal truth and infinite goodness; and 
to know and love him is the highest liberty that can 
adorn the soul of man. Though covered with rags 
in a grimy dungeon, or serving beneath the lash of a 
tyrant, he enjoys a more exalted liberty than the intel- 
lectual thrall and moral slave who sits on the throne, 
robed in the purple vestments of royalty. The former 
is a freeman, the latter a bondman. Apostasy and 
blasphemy mean moral cowardice and mental thrall- 
dom; and the God who punished those guilty of such 
crimes was enforcing freedom with salutary enact- 
ments. 

When Christ came to redeem the world, he did not 
"preach a different religion/' as Mr. Ingersoll claims, 
but his mission was to realize the prophecies that 
echoed along the murmuring streams and among the 
shady groves of Eden when God promised a Re- 
deemer to atone for the transgressions of primeval 
man. Christ was the realization of Israel's fond 
dreams; and the Church was the fulfillment of the 
Synagogue. 

Mr. Ingersoll says, "that God sanctioned all the 
cruelties of bloody wars waged against a people for 
defending their native land." 

Allow me to correct the views of the agnostic on 
this point. All lands and all countries belong to the 
Supreme Being, for he created them, and he has a 
right to dispose of them. Hundreds of years before, 
God had given the land of Canaan to Abraham and 
his descendants; and the valleys and hills beyond the 



Lecture VIII. 159 

Jordan did not belong to the tribes who dwelt in that 
region. 

And what was the character of the people that they 
were to exterminate? Dean Milman writes: "Among 
the Canaanites human sacrifices were common; babes 
were burnt alive to Moloch. The chastity of their 
females was the offering most acceptable to Baal 
Peor, or the lord Peor. It was this inhuman and 
loathsome religion that was to be swept away from 
the polluted territory of Palestine by the exterminat- 
ing conquests of the Jews." (History of the Jews, 
p. 62.) "The people who were to be merciful to the 
meanest beast; those who were not to exercise any 
oppression towards a stranger of another race, an 
Edomite, or even toward their ancient enemy, an 
Egyptian, on the capture of a Canaanitish city were 
to put man, woman, and child to the sword. Their 
enemies were designated, appointed limits fixed to 
their conquests; beyond a certain boundary the am- 
bitious invasion, which was before a virtue, became 
a crime. The whole nation was suddenly to pause in 
its career. Thus far they were to be like hordes of 
Tartars, Scythians, or Huns, bursting irresistibly from 
their deserts, and sweeping away every vestige of 
human life; at a given point their arms were to fall 
from their hands, and they were to become a great, 
unambitious, agricultural republic, with a simple 
religion, an equal administration of justice, a thriving 
and industrial population, brotherly harmony and 
mutual good will between all ranks; domestic virtues, 
purity of morals, gentleness of manners were to arise 
in the midst of the desolation their arms had made." 
(History of the Jews, p. 77-78.) 



160 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

Before Josue, with his hosts, had passed the Jor- 
dan, the Midianite women, acting according to the 
advice of Balaam, had enticed the Israelites to lewd- 
ness and idolatry, as we learn from the Ancient Tes- 
tament and from Josephus, in his "Antiquities of the 
Jews." 

Samuel Burder, alluding to this fact, says that 
"it was the wickedness of the nations of Ca- 
naan, and nothing else, that occasioned their ex- 
cision." To preserve his chosen people from the 
crimes of idolatry, debauchery, licentiousness, and 
human sacrifice that characterized the lascivious cere- 
monies of Canaanitish tribes, God gave the command 
that they should be exterminated, and their abomina- 
tions extirpated from the land by the destruction of 
the altar and the grove, the priesthood and the laity, 
the idol and his worshiper. But here the slaughter 
was to end, and the conquest was to cease, and the 
people were to obey the original commandment, 
"Thou shalt not kill." It is no crime to exercise one's 
rights. The Government that executes the criminal 
is not guilty of murder; for it has a right to protect 
itself by lopping off a corrupt member, just as a man 
enjoys the privilege of preserving his life by the ampu- 
tation of an infected limb. God had the right to 
preserve his people by the extinction of races who 
would have ingulfed them in temporal and eternal 
perdition ; and, therefore, he committed no crime, and 
gave no orders worthy of reprobation. Besides, we 
must understand that the soul is indestructible, and the 
death of the body is nothing more than the birth of 
a new life and the gate of immortality. 

The "little babes that smile and coo in the face 



Lecture VIII. 161 

of murder" were innocent, and to preserve them from 
the contamination of their parents, God took them 
to heaven to dwell with himself in never-ending glory. 
Was this not love divine? 

"What shall we do with the maidens? Give them 
to rabble murderers?" 

That statement is not correct. Milman says : "The 
conduct toward female captives deserves particular 
notice. The beautiful slave might not be hurried, as 
was the case during those ages falsely called heroic, 
perhaps reeking with the blood of her murdered rel- 
atives, to the bed of the conqueror. She was allowed 
a month for decent sorrow; if, after that, she became 
the wife of her master, he might not capriciously 
abandon her and sell her to another; she might claim 
her freedom as the price of her humiliation." (His- 
tory of the Jews, p. j6.) 



LECTURE IX. 

MR. INGERSOLL does not know whether man 
be immortal or not; but he intends to live as 
if the grave were the end of human existence, and he 
leaves no stone unturned to convert the world to his 
ideas on this point. 

As the years roll by, and the seasons come and go; 
when the deep-green foliage of milder days and 
brighter skies has turned to the sere and yellow 
leaf, fit token of our earthly pilgrimage adown the 
mystic valley to the land of silence; when the melan- 
choly notes of the grave mingle with the "west wind's 
sighs" and the music of "the breeze/' and the doleful 
strains of purling brooks, and rippling streams, and 
wailing woods, and whispering groves, our thoughts 
flow back over the fleeting shadows of time that glide 
along our memories. There are vacant chairs around 
our firesides, and there are aching voids in our hearts, 
that never can be filled. Faces once wreathed in 
smiles of joy have passed to the dreary tomb, and lips 
that once spoke words of eloquence and love are now 
sealed by the angel of death. Friends have bidden 
farewell to all life's joys and sorrows, and have passed 
to the land of eternal drfams. But we can not be- 
lieve that their lives are forever extinguished, and 
that their existence is to be reckoned among the faded 
memories of the past. The creeds of all nations and 
of all ages, and the instincts of all tribes and all 
peoples, tell us that the mystic bond is not broken; 
that there is a real life beyond the grave; that there is 

162 



Lecture IX. 163 

another world beyond death's grewsome shadows, 
where loving hearts shall be united, where familiar 
faces shall meet again, and where voices, long silent, 
shall awake from the dust and speak to friends in 
other lands. Faith in the reality of a future world, 
and the existence of a Supreme Being, and the im- 
mortality of the soul, has been manifested in the art 
and literature of every nation and the myths and fables 
Of every people in the history of the world. These 
three articles have never been dissociated. In the 
most savage state men felt that there was some mys- 
terious Power beyond the deep blue immensity. They 
attributed every phenomenon in nature to the will 
of this Omnipotent Being. They heard his voice in 
the peal of the thunder, and saw the flash of his eye 
in the lightning's burning flame. His power was 
revealed in the breath of the tempest and the wing of 
the breeze, in the sweep of the flood and the roar of 
the deep. His wrath manifested itself in the earth- 
quakes that shook oceans and continents, and in- 
gulfed mountains and hills. His smiles beamed forth 
in every leaf of vernal wood, and every sheaf of golden 
grain, and every field of waving corn, and every grove 
of yellow fruit. 

Among the Greeks and Romans religion is so 
interwoven with their national life that we can not 
appreciate their history without a knowledge of their 
mythology. It pervades the works of Socrates and the 
tragedies of ^Eschylus, the orations of Cicero and the 
annals of Tacitus. It is poured forth on the harp of 
the muse, and mingles with the song of classic 
bard. It is interwoven with the legends and fables 
that cluster around the cradle of ancient nations, and 



164 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

it shaped the destiny of infant races. Its lights and 
shadows fall across the threshold of the national 
forum, and mingle with the joys and sorrows that 
gather around the hearthstone of the family. It con- 
secrated the toil of the domestic, and hallowed the 
enactments of the Senate. Every transaction of great 
moment to the Empire lit anew the flame of sacrifice 
upon pagan altars, enriched their shrines with nature's 
choicest gifts, and filled the fanes with waves of mel- 
ody that echoed beyond the clouds, and awoke the 
ancient gods who slept in the temple of the skies. 
Mars guided the footsteps of conquering legions to 
the scene of war, decimated the serried phalanx, and 
sanctified the carnage of the battlefield with the halo 
of religion. When the storm swept over the liquid 
deep, and the flying spray and foaming billow leaped 
above deck and mast, and the raging sea threatened 
to ingulf the moaning ship, the mariner sent up his 
vow to the throne of Neptune. Homer and Virgil 
worshiped at the shrine of the Muses. Calliope 
circled the brow of Xenophon and Horace with 
Berenice's golden locks. Apollo culled the choicest 
flowers of Helicon, and wreathed them into garlands 
for the temple of song. Arion clothed the memory of 
the dauntless hero with the splendor of the sunbeams 
and the glory of the rainbow. The vestal virgins ever 
kept alive the sacred fire upon the altar of Urania. 
Bellona sang the praises of the patriot who marched 
forth amidst wild shouts of applause and martial 
strains of war, to fight and bleed and die for his 
country's freedom and the honor of her flag. Minerva 
consecrated the gilded shrine of genius, art, and 
science with crystal drops from Castalia's shady fount. 



Lecture IX. 165 

The eloquence of Mercury, the lyre of Orpheus, and 
the voices of the Sirens were implored to assist the 
multitude in celebrating the feats of the conqueror 
as he returned to the walls of the imperial city and 
passed beneath the arch of victory. The Pierides in- 
spired the musician with sweet draughts from 
Aganippe's flowing stream and Parnassus' silvery 
brook, to sing the strifes of gods and heroes. 

Gardens bloomed and flourished beneath the genial 
smile of Flora, and Faunus fertilized the fields of the 
rustic and multiplied the flocks of the shepherd. 
Diana protected the timid virgin from the wiles of 
the unfaithful suitor, and Nemesis strengthened the 
arm of the fiery youth on his missions of vengeance. 
Ardent young lovers presented their garlands to the 
temple of Venus, and sealed their plighted faith on the 
altar of Hymen. The frown of Nox was revealed in 
the shadows of night; and the joy of Sol was mani- 
fested in the brightness of day. Every hill and vale, 
every dell and dale, had its tutelary divinity. There 
were Dryads of the woods and Nereides of the sea, 
Oreades of the mountains, and Naiades of the streams. 

The Greeks and Romans worshiped the powers 
that reigned above the clouds, because they believed 
in the immortality and the responsibility of the soul. 
They thought that their deities dwelt in every place, 
and that their eyes were upon all the paths of men. 
They believed that after death the shades of departed 
heroes were crowned with golden diadems and en- 
throned upon the sunkissed peaks of Olympus, or 
enshrined in fields of crystal light beyond the purple 
dome. The faith of ancient Egypt in the eternal 
durability of mankind is attested by the lofty pyramids 



1 66 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

that are swept by the wandering clouds, and the grand 
mausoleums that preserve the dust of kings, and the 
marble shafts that keep their lonely watch above the 
somber couch where sleep the men of distant cen- 
turies. The genius of the poet built the throne of 
Osiris amidst gleams and flames of purple light that 
roll "in glittering billows" in that vast realm of 
spheres that fleck and jewel and spangle the broad 
firmament of heaven. The leaning columns and 
broken arches, the lonely statues and desolate shrines, 
the tombs encased in walls of rock, and temples 
carved in ribs of stone, the monstrous Sphinx and 
the idols of bronze that sit in majestic solitude amidst 
the ashes of a fallen empire, — these are silent but 
solemn and eloquent witnesses to the fact that the 
people who wandered over the sands of the desert 
and dwelt on the borders of the Nile four thousand 
years ago believed in the existence of a future world 
and the eternal durability of the human race. 

The majesty of pagan gods shone with the 
radiance of the sun, and the beauty of their counte- 
nance was manifested in the glimmer of the moon; 
the sparkling of their eyes mingled with the shimmer 
of the stars, and the shadow of their glory rested 
upon sungilt cloud and burnished wave. It was the 
hope of immortality that induced the fairest maiden 
of Egypt to appear, clad in royal gowns, as a sacri- 
fice to the madding stream; for she believed that the 
gods of floods would adorn her hand with the wed- 
ding ring, and crown her locks with the nuptial 
wreath, and lead her through the halls of glory, 
where the divinities would arise from their jasper 
thrones, and would courtesy to the bride of the Nile. 



Lecture IX. 167 

It was the hope of immortality that inspired the 
noblest youths of Phoenicia to offer their lives as a 
holocaust for the sins of the nation. It was the hope 
of immortality that encouraged the purest damsels 
of Babylonia to shed their blood on the altar of Baal. 
It was the hope of immortality that prompted the most 
heroic and the darkest deeds that brighten or sully 
the page of history. It was the hope of immortality 
that inspired thousands of victims to throw themselves 
beneath the ponderous wheels of Juggernaut. It was 
the hope of immortality that inspired the youthful 
widow to perish amidst the flames of the funeral pile. 
It was the hope of immortality that crimsomed the 
stones of Druidical altars with human gore and fed the 
sacrificial flames of Teocallis with human flesh. It 
was the dream of eternal glory that strengthened the 
arm of the warrior, that nerved the heart of the sailor, 
that bent the knee of the slave, that bowed the neck 
of the captive, that softened the temper of tyrants, 
that broke the rod of despots, that influenced the 
scepter of kings, that inspired the souls of priests and 
filled the minds of prophets and oracles with visions 
of boundless worlds and dazzling thrones. It was 
the dream of eternal glory that actuated the men who 
covered the sultry plains of India, and crowned the 
wild mountain-peaks of Mongolia with Buddhistic 
temples and Brahmanic shrines. 

It was the dream of eternal glory that inspired the 
inmates of the Lamaseries to aggrandize their fanes 
with all the wealth and pageantry that Oriental genius 
could devise. It was with the vision of undying life 
that the dusky sons of Pharaoh burned incense on 
the altars of Serapis, and offered their prayers to the 



1 68 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

silent Sphinx. It was with this vision that the un- 
tutored nomad wandered forth from his tent to hymn 
a psalm of praise to the Polar Star. It was with this 
vision that the sable children of Ethiopia assembled 
within the sacred palm-groves of Central Africa, and 
polluted the earth with their bloody rites and weird 
incantations. It was with this vision that the be- 
nighted savage knelt in silent adoration before the 
gleaming eyes and scaly folds of his serpent god. It 
was with this vision that the swarthy sons of the desert 
have followed the standard of the Prophet and the 
glimmer of the Crescent through centuries, and have 
written the history of their conquests with the battle-ax 
steeped in the blood of the nations. It was the 
hope of eternal life beyond the grave that has reared 
every temple in the history of the world, from the dawn 
of our race to the closing days of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. The doctrine of the soul's immortality has been 
connected with the cult of every nation, and every 
people, and every tribe, and every tongue, from the 
farthest region laved by the surge of Southern seas 
to the land of the midnight sun. 

Whatever has been taught and believed by all 
nations, and in all ages, must respond to the innate de- 
sire of human nature, must be established on the most 
rational convictions of the human mind, must agree 
with every aspiration of the human soul and every 
throb of the human heart. Any doctrine so intimately 
connected with every fiber of our corporal and spiritual 
composition, must have been interwoven with our cre- 
ation, and grown and developed with the growth and 
development of our being. We call that a native in- 
stinct which reigns amidst all the passions of men and 



Lecture IX. 169 

all the revolutions of ages and all the vicissitudes of 
time. Natural instinct conducts man to fields of 
thought, and inspires him to march through realms of 
lore. Natural instinct prompts man to seek fellowship 
with his race and to consummate the pleasure of genial 
associations at the nuptial altar, where the joys of faith- 
ful hearts are blended in the bond of connubial bliss. 

Knowledge, love, and marriage are inborn passions 
because they are coextensive with the existence of 
mankind. Now, the belief in a future world and 
the desire of immortality are as universal as the law 
of marriage and love; hence we must agree that these 
are also native instincts. Therefore we must admit 
that the soul will outlive the ages of time, and continue 
to exist until the gloaming of the eternal day. If we 
ignore this universal voice of humanity, and reject 
the dogma of immortality, then we must hold that 
every idea and thought of the human brain, every 
dream and fancy of the human mind, every beat and 
stroke of the human heart, are but shadowy phantoms, 
more illusive than the mirage that fills the skies with 
fields and floods, and skirts the snowy clouds with 
crystal palaces, adorned with golden minarets and 
glittering spires. 

Everything in this world is perishable except the 
human soul. Nations flow and ebb like the tidal 
waves. Races grow and flourish till the world re- 
sounds with the fame of their achievements, and then 
fall into decay. The short space of a few centuries 
brings around many changes. When the red man of 
America performed the war-dance and sang the war- 
song; when he bent his bow, and sent his steel-clad 
arrow swift and straight to the heart of the pale-faced 



170 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

invader, he never dreamed that in two hundred years 
his children would be driven beyond the Rocky 
Mountains, and would soon perish on that distant 
shore. He never dreamed that the names of his sires 
and the chiefs of his tribe would be forgotten, and 
that no epitaph would be written above their graves 
to commemorate their wanderings from the banks 
of the Potomac and the Susquehanna to the far West, 
where the evening sun stoops to kiss the liquid 
plains. 

Three thousand years ago the fate of men and 
nations and races was sung by Israel's wisest king, 
when, having sipped the cup of every joy that earth 
can give, he closed his mournful monody with the sad 
words that "all is vanity and vexation of spirit, and 
nothing is lasting under the sun." History informs 
us that there once dwelt on the Island of Rhodes a 
military organization that won immortal fame on 
Eastern hills and plains, and before the gates of the 
City of David. The Moslem Crescent had been 
planted on the ruins of Hellenic glory, the spires of 
Turkish mosques pointed heavenward from the ashes 
of Christian fanes, the harem had been established 
within the sacred environments of ancient convent 
walls, and the cry of the muezzin proclaimed the hour 
of prayer from those lofty towers where the chimes 
of cathedral bells sent forth their silvery tones in the 
days of Chrysostom, when patriarchs governed the 
Eastern Church, and Christian kings sat on the throne 
of Constantine the great. The Ottoman war-ships 
unfurled their sails, and steered for the island home 
of those valiant heroes, whose fathers had marched 
with kings of France and Germany to the gates 



Lecture IX. 171 

of Ptolemais and Damietta. After three months of 
unexampled courage, dauntless heroism, and count- 
less sacrifices, the Knights of St. John repulsed and 
drove the Mussulman from their shores. The noble 
champions of the Cross fought to preserve their 
homes and the graves of their sires from the unholy 
touch of the infidel's foot. Their beautiful vales were 
adorned with the luxuriant growth of a tropical clime ; 
their meadows lay smiling beneath the clear purple of 
a Mediterranean sky. Every spot of ground within 
their ocean-leagured home was consecrated by sweet 
and happy memories. No European conqueror had 
ever dared to invade their land and to disturb their 
homes and the peace of their firesides. They fought 
for the preservation of an earthly kingdom, where 
their children might live in peace and comfort when 
they themselves should sleep beneath the greensward. 
They thought that their Government would be eternal. 
But the tide of ages has rolled onward; the history of 
four hundred years has been written ; other conquerors 
came in the wake of the Moslem; other emblems fol- 
lowed the setting of the Crescent; the Knights of St. 
John have passed away; a foreign flag now floats from 
those embattled towers where the sword of the 
Grand Master cleft the helmet of the Turk ; a strange 
people walk the land; the ancient heroes are for- 
gotten ; the cattle feed above their graves and trample 
their tombstones beneath their feet. And so it is with 
all earthly powers. Only a few thousand years have 
glided by since the Angel of Vengeance unsheathed 
his flaming sword, and took his stand on the outskirts 
of Eden; only a few thousand years have rolled away 
since primeval man bade farewell to Paradise, and 



172 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

wandered forth from the silvery streams, where lilies 
bloomed and flowers grew to beautify the home which 
God had prepared for the human race; only a few 
thousand years have passed into the silent ages since 
the voice of the serpent charmed the soul of Eve; and 
yet, what wonderful changes have occurred, and what 
marvelous revolutions have agitated the globe within 
the brief space of those fleeting centuries! But 
amidst the revolution of ages, the rise and fall of 
empires, the birth and death of nations, the human 
soul remains unscathed. The soul of man does not 
slumber in the cradle of death, does not wither in the 
shadows of the grave. In an unseen land there live 
the souls of men whose death has been recorded on 
the tablets of fame; whose sepulchers have been for- 
gotten in the vicissitudes of time and lost in the revolu- 
tions of ages; and whose burning words have been 
silenced by the vociferous plaudits that greeted the 
entree of new heroes upon the stage of fame. In an 
unseen land there live the souls of men whose mem- 
ories have been immortalized by the song of the poet; 
whose achievements have been transmitted to poster- 
ity by the pen of the historian; whose faces have con- 
secrated the canvas of the painter, and whose features 
have been carved by the chisel of the sculptor. In 
an unseen land there live the souls of men who have 
cast a halo of light around the marble shaft that com- 
memorates the faded glory of fallen nations; who 
have hallowed the dust where they walked, and moved, 
and worked, and died. In an unseen land there live 
the souls of men whose ashes repose in the city of the 
dead, and whose deeds awaken the gratitude of count- 
less millions who come in endless processions to utter 



Lecture IX. 173 

a prayer, and heave a sigh, and drop a tear upon the 
green grass that waves above their lonely couch. In 
an unseen land there live the souls of men who stood 
high in the court of kings and monarchs; who won 
renown on distant fields; who alleviated the griev- 
ances of the toiling multitude. In an unseen land 
there live the souls of men who flourished in remote 
ages that have faded from the memory of the busy 
world; and those who shine through the misty haze 
of centuries; and those who were coeval with our 
fathers. In an unseen land there live the souls of 
men who passed their years in the vale of obscurity; 
who wielded the pick and the shovel, the hammer and 
the hoe; who built our railroads, and dug our canals; 
who made our cities, and toiled in our factories; who 
labored beneath the scorching rays of summer and 
the chilly blast of winter, from early dawn until the 
light of day had vanished from mountain-peak and 
floating cloud, and the blush of the setting sun had 
faded from purple sky and glassy wave. In an unseen 
land there live the souls of men who flourished in every 
age, and moved in every sphere, — from the sad con- 
dition of the mendicant to the exalted station of 
royalty. 

Reason fortifies our belief in the tenet of immortal 
life. In its present state of incarceration the mind de- 
pends on the five senses for its knowledge of the ma- 
terial world. These senses are the gates by which 
the soul enters the realm of matter. I gaze on the 
starry host, and an image of those shining constel- 
lations is formed on the retina of my eye. That image 
represents the external, appearance of the heavenly 
bodies; it portrays the accidents of these objects. So 



174 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

far I have no knowledge of the essential constituents 
of the stars, and I am ignorant of their nature and 
the laws that govern them. The eye presents that 
picture to the mind through the brain, and the in- 
tellect surveys and scans and weighs all the marks 
and notes and determinations of these orbs. Having 
accomplished this, the intellect sums up the result of 
the investigation, and forms a picture, representing 
in some manner more or less perfect, according to 
the mental acumen and the means of information, the 
essential constitution of the celestial spheres. This 
latter picture, this true conception, this essential 
notion, is an idea. This idea is something entirely 
distinct from matter. 

The forest oak, reflected in the limpid rill, is some- 
thing immaterial. When we stand on the deck of 
a ship, and look into the mirror of the deep, and be- 
hold a reflection of the empurpled vault variegated 
with iridescent colors that fringe the clouds with 
golden lace, we do not confound the material objects 
above with the image that reposes beneath the glassy 
wave. Ideas are still more remote from matter than 
images produced behind the mirror; for an idea con- 
tains merely the figure of the essence. Moreover, 
the mind forms abstract ideas ; and these abstract ideas 
represent abstract and absolute existences. But we 
know that abstract existence, unqualified and unlim- 
ited, is essentially removed from concrete and material 
existence. Again, the soul forms concepts of spiritual 
substances ; and spiritual substances are wholly foreign 
to matter. Therefore the soul operates in the field 
of ideas, in the realms of essences, concepts, and 
spiritual substances. These constitute the range of 



Lecture IX. 175 

its power and operation, and define the nature of its 
being. These prove conclusively that the soul is a 
simple, spiritual, and indivisible substance. 

Since the mind by its nature can act independently 
of matter, it can also exist independently of matter; 
for nothing can operate that does not exist. Action 
is superior to existence; for action implies the use of 
powers, the employment of faculties, the develop- 
ment of capacity, — which adorn quiescent being with 
the perfection of progressive movement. Since the 
soul can live without the body, there is no reason 
why it should perish with the suspension of corporal 
functions and the extinction of carnal life. Further- 
more, the soul, being simple and indivisible, can not 
suffer disintegration; and if it be extinguished with 
the cessation of animal life, this could only occur by 
a positive act of annihilation on the part of Divine 
providence. 

But will God ever destroy the human soul? Why, 
then, has he endowed her with such exalted powers? 
Why has he made her so superior to this vast world 
of mundane creation? In the Bible we read that God 
created man to his own image and likeness; and 
Christian theology teaches that this image is in the 
soul. As there are three persons in the Divinity, so 
there are three powers in the soul, — will, memory, 
and understanding. Inanimate nature is governed 
by the force of immutable laws, established by a fiat 
of infinite wisdom. Irrational creation is directed in 
its movements by instinct, which enables the thought- 
less beast to supply his wants and to prolong his 
life. The Supreme Being has bestowed on man the 
possession of free will, and made him a responsible 



176 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

agent. There would be a remarkable lack of wisdom 
to render a being master of his acts, to impose a law 
upon him, and to make him responsible for his deeds, 
unless there were a future world where his conduct 
would be judged according to the provisions of this 
law. I do not speak of positive ordinances, since there 
are some who deny the existence of revelation and the 
establishment of a moral order by legislative decrees. 

Every being gifted with rational perception recog- 
nizes the fact that there are some actions which elevate 
and perfect, and others that degrade and deteriorate 
human nature. The most superficial thinkers ac- 
knowledge the superiority of the intelligent, sober, 
pure man, and regard him as a nobler type of his 
race than the stupid, licentious drunkard. The former 
has developed his mental and moral faculties to the 
plenitude of their capacity, while the latter has stunted 
the loftiest aspirations of the soul, and dwarfed the 
noblest instincts of the heart. Actions that evolve 
mental and moral faculties are called virtues, even 
by those authors whose souls were entangled in the 
web and woof of ancient mythology, and whose minds 
were obscured by the errors and fallacies of pagan 
darkness. Since nature's voice speaks to man in 
every age and clime, impelling him to sacrifice his 
passions upon the altar of virtue, and to worship at 
the shrine of genius, she must offer a crown of glory 
to the willing victim, and a golden diadem to the faith- 
ful votary. 

Man enjoys the gift of memory, and by the force 
of this faculty he can live amidst all the glories of the 
past. Memory wanders with the archaeologist over 
the black desert of ages to seek the key to hidden lore 



Lecture IX. 177 

in the ruins of ancient courts and temples. Memory 
lingers with the poet who selects themes of meditation 
upon the vanity of human greatness amidst the ashes 
of fallen empires. Memory sits within the deathlike 
silence and somber shadows of ancient Babylon, and 
muses upon the crumbling stones of a city that once 
exacted tribute from nations of the Orient. Memory 
walks among the sepulchers of Nineveh, and reads the 
buried history of a kingdom that rejoiced in the extent 
of her domination and guarded her treasures with 
massive walls and brazen gates. Memory rests be- 
neath the shadow of Grecian glory, and beholds the 
rise of the star of Athens that sparkled on Ionia's 
ruffled waves, and shone brightly o'er the emerald isles 
that were rocked in the cradle of the deep. Memory 
lives with the immortal heroes who consecrated the 
temple of freedom and the shrine of classic lore. 
Memory travels with the poets of Latium, who come 
to bask in the sheen of civilization, and to light the 
torches in the flame that shone far and wide over 
iEgean waves. Memory walks down the halls of 
science and learning with the muse of Grecian song, 
until the ashes of the Theseus become the funeral pyre 
of Grecian splendor. Memory wanders back through 
the dim and distant centuries to the dawn of every 
Government that figures in the march of ages. Mem- 
ory meditates on the magnificent ruins of ancient 
Persia, and reads the lives of kings and conquerors 
whose bones repose in the superb tombs in the valley 
of sepulchers. Memory flies with the primeval god 
of the Chaldeans from the bank of the Euphrates to 
the shores of India and across the mountains of the 
North to the rocky plains of Thibet. Memory follows 



178 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

the tide of the Aryan family from Himalaya's deep 
defiles and Altai's craggy heights, over the Phrygian 
highlands of Western Asia, past the Euxine's silvery 
dimples, to the somber vales of Scythia and the pri- 
meval forests of Germany. Memory can trace the path 
of the Goth to the fertile plains of Andalusia, and the 
march of the Vandal to the walls of the Eternal City. 
Memory can follow the Dane from his home, amid 
fields of ice and snow, beneath the Northern lights, 
to the isles of the Western ocean, and the hosts of 
Islam from the burning sands of Africa to the summit 
of Granada. 

But the grandest power of the human soul is the 
faculty of understanding. The force of thought has 
no peer; and thought is the product of the intellect. 
Thought can utilize every force of matter and enslave 
every law of nature. The god of the waves may surge 
and roll and roar, but man compels him to carry his 
ships to the farthest continents on the globe and the 
most distant isles of the sea. The flood may sweep 
and hiss and froth and leap over sand and stone and 
rock and boulder, in his frantic rush from the moun- 
tain's dizzy height to the sleeping vale, and onward 
through forest glens and verdant hills and bosky 
plains and smiling meads; but man can force him to 
turn the wheel of mill and factory, and fill the world 
with the product of his power. The human mind has 
shackled the flash of the stormy skies, and sent it on 
errands of love and mercy over oceans and conti- 
nents to the uttermost bounds of the earth. The 
human mind has chained the fleecy vapors to wheels 
of iron, and has lashed the child of flame and flood 
into foaming steeds, that neigh and prance, and fly 



Lecture IX. 179 

with cargoes of human lives and the wealth of human 
industry over hill and vale, and dell and dale, and 
mountain crag and moonlit wave. 

The sublimity of the human mind shines forth 
in all the works of the human race. It shines forth 
in the grand periods of Demosthenes, who electrified 
the statesmen of Greece, and in the eloquent flights of 
Cicero, who held in his hand the mighty heart of Rome. 
It shines forth in the brush of Raphael and Angelo, 
who gave the canvas life and speech, and sketched 
the smile and frown. It shines forth in the chisel of 
Phidias and Praxiteles, who carved the tear and sigh, 
and made the marble laugh and weep. It shines forth 
in the visions of Homer and the dreams of Milton, 
in the lyre of Shelley and the harp of Byron. It shines 
forth in the strains of Mozart and Beethoven, who 
have thrilled the world with waves of symphony and 
floods of harmony. The majesty of the human soul 
beams forth in all the works of art, and in all the 
achievements of science, in all the trophies of progress, 
in all the thoughts and in all the dreams, in all the 
raptures and in all the ecstasies, in all the flights of 
fancy and in all the visions of glory. The mind of 
man is not circumscribed by space or time. It lives 
in every age, and roams through every world. It has 
flown upon the wings of thought to those distant 
stars whose rays have struggled through the long 
aeons to reach the atmosphere that envelops the earth. 
It has discovered that those faint specks of light that 
twinkle in the skies are glittering orbs and dazzling 
suns. It can sweep through all the boundless realms 
of space, and weigh all the globes, and measure all 
the spheres. It can touch all the worlds and planets 



180 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

and constellations that wander through those vast 
regions where no sound has ever broken the ominous 
silence of pre-mundane existence. Human thought 
has soared beyond flaming space, beyond ethereal 
zones, beyond those dark regions where no sun has 
ever cast his golden beams, and where night, black 
and awful, has hung his sable curtains. 

Upward and upward, onward and onward, the 
human mind has flown and swept and soared, on the 
wings of fancy, love, and vision, to those azure fields 
where Omnipotence has spread his pavilion and 
established his radiant throne, and where the hosts 
of every choir and the legions of every age fill the 
universe with the notes of golden harps and the 
strains of beamy lyres. The soul is immortal in all 
its thoughts and aspirations, and is destined to live 
until its desires are satiated in the rapturous kiss of 
Infinite Love. When the hills shall have melted, and 
the mountains shall have fallen; when every sea shall 
have responded to the amorous dart of the sun, and 
passed into the empyrean; when every star shall have 
faded from the welkin; when the eternal choirs shall 
have sung the requiem of a dead world; when the 
aurora of the eternal morn shall have ushered in 
the King of eternal day; when the twilight shadows 
of the eternal ages shall have gathered around the 
awful majesty of uncreated existence, — God will ap- 
pear, clad in the raiment of undying infancy, encircled 
with bands of shining angels and armies of death- 
less men. 



LECTURE X. 

MR. INGERSOLL says that "God tells the Jews 
to buy up the children of the heathen round 
about, and they should be servants for them;" and 
then he continues in his denunciatory declarations 
against the cruelty and injustice of slavery. 

If God has supreme dominion over a being, he can 
dispose of it as he wishes. The injustice of slavery 
consists in the fact that all men are born equal, and no 
one has a natural right over the other, and can not 
use him as human chattels. It is not unjust for a 
father to exercise power over a child, and to demand 
the fruit of his labor to a certain age in compensation 
for the cares of infancy and early youth; and the laws 
of every nation recognize this right. When there is 
a right to exact the service of a fellow-being, there 
is no violation of justice in executing this right. 
Therefore God can subject whom he wishes to the 
will of another; and the Jews, acting according to his 
injunction, and exercising the authority that he del- 
egated to them, were guilty of no atrocity in comply- 
ing with the custom that tolerated and confirmed the 
condition of servitude. 

Again, we must remember that a slave in Israel 
was in many respects one of the family, enjoying the 
benefit of the law and the commandments which for- 
bade murder, injustice, and inculcated the sanctity of 
the Sabbath. The slave, as well as the beast, rested 
from his work on the Lord's day, and was entitled to 
immunity from labor during the seventh year and 

181 



1 82 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

the year of the Jubilee. If the slave were an Israelite, 
and were reduced to thralldom for a debt, he was 
allowed a certain amount, the usual sum of a free- 
man, for his labor; and when he had discharged the 
obligation by this means, he was exonerated. How- 
ever, on the seventh year he was liberated uncon- 
ditionally; and in the year of the Jubilee, not only 
were all bondmen restored to their freedom, but the 
lands reverted to their original owners. Slavery 
among the Jews was mild and paternal, and the master 
had no right over the life of his thrall. 

Mr. Ingersoll says that "if they struck a servant, 
and he died immediately, punishment was to follow; 
but if the injured man should live awhile, there was 
to be no punishment because the servant represented 
his money." 

The life of the master is spared, not "because the 
slave is his money," but because the fact that the 
wounded man lives several days is evidence that there 
was no intention to kill, and that death was not pre- 
meditated ; and this supposition is strengthened in view 
of the fact that, the slave being the property of the 
master, the latter is not presumed to have destroyed 
his life maliciously. The same law was applied to 
those who killed a freeman. "He that shall kill his 
neighbor ignorantly, and who is proved to have had 
no hatred against him yesterday, and the day before, 
but to have gone to the wood with him to hew wood, 
and, in cutting down a tree, the ax slipped out of 
his hand, and the iron, slipping from the handle, 
struck his friend, and killed him, he shall flee to one 
of the cities aforesaid, and live." (Deuteronomy 
xix, 5.) 



Lecture X. 183 

"He that striketh a man with a will to kill him, 
shall be put to death ; but he that did not lie in wait for 
him, but God delivered him into his hands, I will ap- 
point thee a place to which he shall flee. If men quar- 
rel, and one strikes a woman with child, and she mis- 
carry indeed, but live herself, he shall be answerable 
for so much damage as the woman's husband shall 
require, and as arbiters shall award." (Exodus xxv.) 
We learn from the same chapter that if an ox gore 
a man to death, the owner shall not be punished; but 
if the ox was known to be a vicious animal, and the 
master was warned, and did not heed the admonition, 
then he shall be put to death ; for this is a proof of his 
criminal negligence and indifference to the life of his 
fellow-being. 

Were slaves treated cruelly? Could they be muti- 
lated with impunity? "If any man strike the eye 
of his man-servant or maid-servant, and leave them 
but one eye, he shall let them go free for the eye 
that he put out; also, if he strike out a tooth of his 
man-servant or maid-servant, he shall in like manner 
make them free." (Exodus xxi, 26, 27.) 

"When the time of a married slave expired," says 
Ingersoll, "he could not take his wife and children 
with him. Then, if the slave did not wish to desert 
his family, he had his ears pierced with an awl, and 
he became his master's property forever." 

That is a falsehood, and Mr. Ingersoll must have 
known it. We read in the twenty-first chapter of 
Exodus that "if thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years 
shall he serve thee ; in the seventh year he shall go out 
free for nothing. If having a wife, his wife shall also 
go out with him; but if the master gave him a wife, 



184 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

and she hath borne sons and daughters, the woman 
and her children shall be her master's; but he him- 
self shall go out with his raiment. If the servant 
shall say, I love my master and my wife and children, 
1 will not go out free, the master shall bring him to 
the gods, and he shall be set to the door and the posts, 
and he shall bore his ears through with an awl, and 
he shall be his servant forever." This is quite different 
from Mr. Ingersoll's statement. The master can only 
retain the wife that he gave the slave. 

How were slaves treated in other countries of an- 
cient times? I will here give a few quotations from the 
best authorities on this question. 

In speaking of Roman slaves, Lecky writes: 
"Numerous acts of the most odious barbarity were 
committed. The well-known anecdotes of Flaminius 
ordering a slave to be killed to gratify by the spectacle 
the curiosity of a guest; of Vedius Pollio feeding his 
fish on the flesh of slaves ; and of Augustus sentencing 
a slave, who had killed and eaten a favorite quail, 
to crucifixion, are the extreme examples that are re- 
corded. We have, however, many other very horrible 
glimpses of slave-life at the close of the Republic, and 
in the early days of the Empire. The marriage of 
slaves was entirely unrecognized by law, and in their 
case the words adultery, incest, or polygamy, had no 
legal meaning. Old and infirm slaves were constantly 
exposed to perish on an island of the Tiber. We read 
of slaves chained as porters to the doors, and cultivat- 
ing the fields in chains. Ovid and Juvenal describe 
the fierce Roman ladies tearing their servants' faces, 
and thrusting the long pins of their brooches into 
their flesh. The master, at the close of the Republic, 



Lecture X. 185 

had full power to sell his slave as a gladiator, or as 
a combatant with wild beasts." (Lecky's History of 
European Morals, Volume I, pp. 302-3-4.) 

And remember that these cruelties were exercised 
one thousand years, and more, after the time of Moses, 
and by the most enlightened and most polished nation 
on earth. Aristotle writes in regard to the treatment 
of slaves: "But as there are three things to be re- 
garded, work, punishment, and food, — to give them 
food, unaccompanied by work or punishment, is wont 
to cause insolence; but to give them labor and punish- 
ment without food is tyrannical, and makes them un- 
able to work. It remains, therefore, to give them 
employment and sufficient food; for it is not possible 
to rule over them without giving them a recompense; 
but the recompense of a slave is his food." (Econom- 
ics i, 5.) 

Describing the nature of a slave, he says: "Who- 
ever, therefore, are as much inferior to their fellows 
as the body is to the soul, or the brutes to men (and 
this is in reality the case with all whose proper use is 
in their bodies, and whose highest excellence consists 
in this part), these, I say, are slaves by nature; and 
it is advantageous to them to be always under this 
kind of government, inasmuch as it is advantageous 
to those above mentioned. He, then, is by nature a 
slave who is fitted to become the chattel of another per- 
son, and, on that account, is so; and who has enough 
just reason to perceive that there is such a faculty 
(as reason) without being endued with the use of it. 
For other animals have no perception of reason, but 
obey their passions; and, indeed, they vary little 
in their use from each other. For the advantage 



1 86 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

which we receive, both from slaves and tame animals, 
arises from their ministering to our bodily necessities. 
It is clear that some men are free by nature, and 
others are slaves, and that, in the case of the latter, 
the lot of slavery is both advantageous and just." 
(Politics i, 5.) 

Remember that Aristotle, the author of these 
quotations, was the strongest mind that ever lived ; and 
yet he inculcates the necessity and justice of slavery 
from the standpoint of reason, and declares that slaves 
are by nature as far inferior to freemen as brutes are 
to the human species. 

"Slavery existed in Greece from her earliest his- 
tory; it prevailed in the days of Homer; in all Grecian 
cities a majority were slaves. In Athens there were 
three slaves to one freeman; in Sparta the proportion 
was even greater. The Helots were named from the 
town of Helos; from it they were taken 1000 B. C. 
They were the property of the State. Lycurgus pro- 
hibited the Spartans from laboring. If these Helots 
increased too fast, the young Spartans, so it is said, 
were sent out to assassinate them. Their number was 
estimated at five hundred thousand. The Sicilians 
treated their slaves with rigor, branded them like 
cattle, and gave them incessant toil." (William 
Dealtry, The Laborer, pp. 28-29-30.) 

In a census of Athens there were reckoned 
twenty thousand citizens and forty thousand slaves. 
In the Peloponnesian war no less than twenty thou- 
sand passed over to the enemy. In general the number 
of slaves was so very great everywhere that the public 
safety was often compromised thereby. "It is neces- 
sary," says Plato, "that slaves should not be of the 



Lecture X. 187 

same country, and that they should differ as much 
as possible in manners and desires; for experience 
has many times shown that, in the frequent defections 
which have been witnessed among the Messenians, 
and in other cities that had a great number of slaves 
of the same language, great evils commonly re- 
sult." (Balmes, European Civilization, p. 91.) It is 
unnecessary to give any more extracts on this ques- 
tion; for these few statements are ample to show that 
slavery was universal among civilized nations of 
antiquity; that slaves were treated with the greatest 
cruelty, unlike the slaves of Israel; and that the ablest 
political economists and philosophers justified human 
thralldom, and regarded bondmen as the chattel of 
freemen. 

Mr. Ingersoll says that "the only voice we have 
ever heard from either of those worlds came from 
hell. There was a rich man who prayed his brothers 
to attend to Lazarus so that they might not come to 
this place. This is the only instance, as far as we 
know, of souls across the river having any sym- 
pathy." 

Does not Mr. Ingersoll know that those words of 
sympathy never came from a damned soul, but were 
uttered by our Divine Lord to show that the law 
and the prophets are to be our guides, and if we 
refuse to listen to them, we would not even listen 
to a messenger from the shadows of death? "They 
have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. 
If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will 
they believe if one rise again from the dead." Is it 
true that there is no sympathy among the blessed 
for suffering humanity? Did not angels come on mis- 



1 88 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

sions of love and mercy to Abraham, Jacob, Moses, 
Lot, Hagar, and Balaam? Did not an angel hearken 
to the cry of the poor woman in the desert, and come 
to her assistance? An angel listened to the prayer of 
Tobias, and heard the wail of Job, and became their 
messenger before the throne of mercy. When the 
birth of Israel's King realized the voice of prophecy 
that had echoed among the hills of Judea for thousands 
of years, angels appeared to the shepherds to announce 
the happy tidings, and the heavenly hosts sang that 
beautiful doxology that has filled the world with hope, 
"Glory be to God in the highest, and on earth peace 
and good-will to< men." 

The Son of Sorrow tells us that "there is joy be- 
fore the angels of God upon one sinner that repent- 
eth;" that the holy spirits ever watch over the life 
of the infant, and the child, and the man; that the 
love of God for sinners is greater than the love of 
a mother for her smiling babe, and that the Savior 
ever stands at the door of the soul and knocks; that 
he wishes to> take possession of the heart; that when 
the life-current is silent in the veins, and the eyes are 
closed, and the lips are sealed, and the pallid face is 
robed in the mantle of death, he will send his angels 
to waft the immortal spark on golden wings to those 
hallowed precincts where sorrow, suffering, and death 
never enter, and life, joy, and bliss never end. 

The Colonel claims that the doctrine of the atone- 
ment is based on the principle that "one man can be 
good for another, or that one man can sin for another. 
I deny it. You have got to be good for yourself. The 
trouble about the atonement is that it saves the 
wrong man." 



Lecture X. 189 

He must remember that God is infinite, and sin, 
being directed against God, is also infinite. A crime 
is measured according to the dignity of the person 
offended. Regicide is a greater enormity than homi- 
cide. Man is a finite being, and all his works partake 
of the nature of his essence, and, therefore, they are 
finite. How could finite deeds ever atone for an in- 
finite transgression? The sufferings that begin with 
the cry of the unconscious infant, and terminate with 
the last sigh of the venerable old man; the sorrows of 
youth and manhood, of the maid and widow, of the 
mother and orphan, of the friendless and homeless, 
of the beggar and the stranger; the sorrows of sick- 
ness, poverty, and death; all the sufferings, and pangs, 
and tortures that men have endured since the birth 
of humanity until the close of its eventful history; all 
the privations and pains of famine, war, slavery, and 
persecution, that have filled the world with the cry 
of anguish and the wail of desolation, could not atone 
for one mortal sin. 

When the happy pair ate the forbidden fruit in the 
Eden of Pleasure, the gates of heaven were barred 
against the human race; and the ban passed on our 
first parents descended to their posterity throughout 
all generations. Immediately after his creation, man 
was elevated to the supernatural state, and entitled 
to enjoy immortal life in those fields that God had 
illumined with flaming belts of light and astral zones 
of fire; and, by his fall, Adam forfeited his privileges, 
and his progeny was disinherited with the sire. 
Heaven was a voluntary gift, offered to man as a re- 
ward for his obedience, and this favor was to be 
transmitted as a golden legacy to his posterity. Had 



190 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

God left our first parents in the natural state, their 
joys would have been of a finite degree, and the con- 
sequences of their disloyalty would have been of an 
entirely different character. Christ came to atone for 
man's crime, and to restore the pristine boon of super- 
natural life. Yet Christian theology teaches that the 
sinner must co-operate with the infinite bounty of the 
Redeemer, and by his sorrow apply the merits of the 
passion to his soul. It is easily seen that in the 
Divine economy of grace man does not sin for Christ, 
nor will the blood of the Savior redeem the impenitent 
sinner. 

Mr. Ingersoll's daughters do not earn the large 
sums of money that they spend annually, but they 
depend upon the free gift of their father, whose love 
hesitates to make no> sacrifices for the comfort and 
joy of his family. If Mr. Ingersoll had a son who 
would become entangled in the toils of the law, I feel 
satisfied that the father, like any other affectionate 
parent, would sacrifice his wealth, time, labor, health, 
and perhaps life, to save that child from the horrors 
of the gallows or the shadow of the dungeon. This 
is an illustration of human frailty and infinite mercy. 

"For instance," says Ingersoll, "I kill some one. 
He is a good man. He loves his wife and children, 
and tries to make them happy; but he is not a Chris- 
tian, and he goes to hell." 

This is a very indefinite assertion. If he has an 
idea that there may be a God, and a Revelation, and 
a Church, he is compelled to examine the matter 
industriously, impartially, and judiciously, leaving 
aside all predilections and prejudices of birth, edu- 
cation, and social environments; and, after thought- 



Lecture X. 191 

ful study and mature deliberation, he finds moral cer- 
tainty for the existence of a Supreme Being' and the 
institution of a revealed religion, he must accept these 
truths under pain of disloyalty to his Creator, to 
whom he owes the tribute of allegiance. However, 
should the same man, with the same disposition, fail 
to see, in the arguments presented, sufficient evidence 
to create a moral certitude, or even engender in his 
mind a serious doubt in regard to the reality of a 
future world, then he is not guilty, and there is no 
Biblical authority for the opinion that he will be 
damned. 

Being convicted of this murder, "I get religion, 
and go to heaven." 

If you are sorry for your sins; otherwise you will 
be cast out with the reprobate, and the "hand of 
mercy can not reach down to you through the 
shadows of hell." So* you see that there is absolutely 
no truth in Mr. Ingersoll's illustration; it is a fancy, 
a chimera. 

"I want you to understand that the Bible was 
never printed until 1488. I want you to know that, 
up to that time, it was in manuscript, in the possession 
of those who could have changed it if they wished; 
and they did change it, because no two copies agreed." 

In reply, "I want you to know" that the printing- 
press was not invented till the early part of the fifteenth 
century; and Gutenberg was the first to bring this 
machine into use, in the year 1438; and the very first 
book that was printed was the Bible, between 1450 
and 1455. "I want you to know" that no other book 
was printed before this time. "I want you to know" 
that every other work was in manuscript previous 



192 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

to the fifteenth century, and in the hands of those who 
could not have changed them, and did not change 
them; for, while no two transcripts of ancient works 
exactly agree in everything, yet they agree in sub- 
stance. "I want you to know" that every argument 
that Mr. Ingersoll brings against the authenticity of 
the Bible can be brought against the authenticity of 
the Vedas, the works of Homer and Xenophon, 
iEschylus and Socrates, Virgil and Horace, Josephus 
and Plutarch. "I want you to know" that the Hebrew 
manuscript was translated into Greek nearly three 
hundred years before Christ, instead of two or three 
years, as Ingersoll says, and that the translation was 
made by seventy-two of the best Hebrew and Greek 
scholars that could be found. "I want you to know" 
that the Jewish historian, Philo, says that when these 
seventy-two interpreters arrived at one of the royal 
residences on the Island of Pharos, they were separated 
into seventy-two or thirty-six apartments, so that 
communication was impossible. "I want you to 
know" that after seventy-two days they appeared to 
compare notes, and they were astonished to find that 
their translations agreed even to the very letter, and 
that the work was regarded as an evidence of Divine 
intervention. ''I want you to know" that there were 
many copies of the Bible, and that both the Jews and 
Christians were familiar with the contents of the 
sacred books, and that changes and interpolations 
were impossible. "I want you to know" that 
all copies of the Testaments agreed in substance. 
"I want you to know" that Henry VIII never 
translated the Bible; that Wm. Tyndale, in 1526, 
was the author of the first version in English 



Lecture X. 193 

of the New and a part of the Old Testament; that 
Coverdale, Bishop of Exeter, printed the whole Bible 

in 1535. 

"You must recollect that we are indebted to mur- 
derers for our Bibles and creeds. Constantine, who 
helped on the good work in its early stages, murdered 
his wife and child, mingling their blood with the blood 
of the Savior." 

Let us see how much truth there is in this state- 
ment of Mr. Ingersoll's. I have read several biog- 
raphies of Constantine, and I find nowhere the ac- 
cusation that he murdered his wife. Infidel Gibbon, 
who uses every opportunity to besmirch the character 
of Christians and Christian kings, does not allude to 
the fact that Constantine was an uxoricide. I refer yoh 
to "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" 
(Volume II, page 153, and the following), where he 
speaks exclusively of the virtues and vices of the 
founder of the Eastern Empire. Crispus, the son of 
Constantine, was murdered very mysteriously, and 
some historians think that the father was guilty of 
this crime ; but they exculpate him on the ground that 
Crispus conspired against the authority of the emperor, 
and was worthy of death. 

Was Jeremiah a murderer? Were Ezekiel and 
Daniel? Were any of the prophets of Israel guilty 
of human blood? Were any of the authors of the 
New Testament accused of this crime? Hence we are 
not indebted to murderers for our Bibles and creeds. 
When Constantine procured the death of his son, he 
was not even a Christian, having been baptized sev- 
eral years after that time, just before his demise. 



194 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

Mr. Ingersoll says that "there are at least one 
hundred thousand errors in the Old Testament." 

Are they all like the "Mistakes of Moses?" There 
are more errors in Ingersoll's lecture on the "Mis- 
takes of Moses" than there are in the whole Bible, 
including both the Old and the New Testament. 

Mr. Ingersoll says that "there are fourteen hundred 
millions of people in the world; and, with all the talk 
and work of societies, only one hundred and twenty 
millions have got Bibles." 

That is no argument. There are millions of people 
who can not read; and yet who would say that these 
people are ignorant of their country's history? 
"Reading and writing," says Henry Giles, in his lec- 
tures, "as critics now generally admit, were not 
known to the ancient Greeks, when early poets chanted 
in their public assemblies mighty songs about gods 
and heroes. It is even maintained that these poets 
could not themselves read or write." And yet they 
were acquainted with the traditions, myths, fables, 
legends, and history of their country, their kings, 
their warriors, and their gods. The uneducated who 
have never read the Bible can easily become familiar 
with its teachings by oral instruction. Everywhere 
they learn the fact that Christ arose from the dead 
in testification of his Divinity; and reason teaches 
them that resurrection requires creative power, and 
creative power 'is Omnipotence, and pertains to God 
alone. They know that God, being Infinite Truth, 
can not lend his assistance to the propagation of 
falsehood. Christ, having performed indubitable mir- 
acles, was either God, or the agent of God; and in 
either case he was the Messenger of Truth. Now, 



Lecture X. 195 

Christ claims that he is the second person of the 
Blessed Trinity, true God, and true man. 

Again, the Savior establishes a Church, and says: 
"He that will not hear the Church, let him be to thee 
as a heathen and a publican." He promises to be with 
that Church for all time, and to guide her in the way 
of truth, holiness, and justice. Having learned these 
few facts, the inquirer can go to the Church, and 
hear her voice in peace and security. The most ob- 
tuse mind can learn these few fundamental facts, and 
it is not necessary for him to read and understand 
the whole Bible. How many men have read the 
ponderous law-books of the Nation and the State? 
How many men have ever read the Constitution in- 
telligently? Do these men act consistently in mani- 
festing their fidelity and showing their obedience to 
the Government? Yes; for it is understood among 
men that the Constitution guarantees to every citizen 
protection of life, liberty, and property. They have 
learned that the Constitution was legitimately estab- 
lished, and that, in view of the advantages offered, the 
Nation and State demand our allegiance. The 
reasonable man at once sees that this is just, 
and does not hesitate to conform with the laws of 
the land, though he is unacquainted with the most of 
them, and though he is ignorant of the fundamental 
principles upon which these laws are established. 

The Christian, becoming acquainted with the 
claims of Christianity and the constitution of the 
Church, rationally complies with her requirements 
and the teachings of the Bible. We do not know 
how many people in the world have Bibles, but if 
we presume that every Christian has a Bible, then 



196 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

there are about five hundred millions of people in pos- 
session of that book, instead of one hundred and 
twenty millions. 

"I want you to understand that, where the Bible 
has been, man has hated his brother." 

And "I w T ant you to understand" that such hatred 
has originated in the perverseness of human nature, 
and not from the teachings of the Bible. "I want 
you to understand" that the Bible enforces the law 
of love as one of the greatest commandments. "Thou 
shalt love thy friend as thyself." (Leviticus xix, 18.) 
"Thou shalt not pass if thou see thy brother's ox 
or his sheep go astray; but thou shalt bring him 
back to thy brother." (Deuteronomy xxii, 1.) "Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." (Luke x, 27.) 
"I give you a new commandment, That you love one 
another: as I have loved you, that you love also one 
another." (John xiii, 34.) "He that loveth his 
neighbor hath fulfilled the law." (Romans xiii, 8.) 
"Let fraternal charity abide in you." (Hebrews 
xiii, 1.) "With a brotherly love from a sincere heart, 
love one another earnestly." (1 Peter i, 22.) "He that 
loveth his brother abideth in the light." (1 John 
ii, 10.) The Bible goes so far in the inculcation of 
fraternal charity as to declare that "we ought to lay 
down our lives for the brethren." (1 John iii, 16.) 

St. John speaks of love in the most exalted terms. 
"Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth 
•God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God." (John 
iv, 7.) The Bible not only teaches the lesson of love, 
but tells us that we must also embrace our enemies 
in our love. "Love your enemies, do good to them 
that hate you; and pray for them that persecute and 



Lecture X. 197 

calumniate you, that you may be the children of your 
Father. For if you love those that love you, what 
reward shall you have? Do not even the publicans 
the same?" (Matthew v, 44.) Our Divine Savior 
herein warns us that we can not be the children of 
God, that we can not enter into the kingdom of 
heaven, unless we love our enemies, and assist those 
that persecute us. The Bible breathes the spirit of 
love, extolling everywhere the virtue of fraternal 
charity, and denouncing hatred and persecution as 
the vilest crimes. 

Mr. Ingersoll claims that where the Bible has been, 
"there have been dungeons, racks, thumbscrews, and 
the sword." 

Were these instruments of torture employed in the 
conversion of the Roman Empire? Did Christians 
retaliate upon their enemies? During the reign of 
Diocletian and Maximian, the Theban legion, com- 
posed of Christian soldiers under the command of an 
officer named Maurice, was ordered to Gaul to fight 
the battles of the country. History informs us that 
more intrepid and more faithful warriors never 
marched beneath the banner of the Roman eagles. 
Before crossing the Alps, Maximian enjoined them 
to participate in the sacrificial oblations in honor of 
pagan divinities, and those dauntless heroes replied 
that, as Christians, they were compelled to disobey 
his order. The ruthless emperor decimated their 
ranks, and these brave soldiers allowed their throats 
to be cut without offering any resistance. Still, they 
were staunch in the advocacy of their rights, and the 
enraged Maximian commanded the legion to draw 
lots the second time. When urged to obey the will 



198 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

of the despot, these noble champions of the faith pre- 
sented this magnanimous petition to the emperor: "We 
are your soldiers, O powerful prince, but we are also 
the servants of God; we owe you our service on the 
field of battle, but we must render homage to God 
by the innocence and purity of our lives; we re- 
ceive pay from you, but he has created and preserved 
us. Lead us to battle; we are ready to combat the 
enemy, but can not shed the blood of our innocent 
brethren. Do not fear a revolt; Christians know how 
to die, but not to rebel; we have arms, but we will 
not use them against our prince, desiring rather to 
suffer an innocent death than to live a guilty life." 

Let Mr. Ingersoll present an illustration like this 
from the history of infidels and atheists of the world. 
Such noble generosity is found only in the heart of a 
Christian. 

The Bible condemns persecution. "Do good to 
them that hate you; and pray for them that persecute 
and calumniate you." (Matthew v, 44.) "For if you 
forgive men their offenses, your Heavenly Father will 
also forgive you your offenses." (Matthew vi, 14.) 
Christ himself, amidst all the tortures of the cruci- 
fixion, taught that memorable lesson of forbearance 
when he cried out, "Father, forgive them; for they 
know not what they do." (Luke xxiii, 34.) St. 
Stephen, the first martyr of Christianity, a man deeply 
imbued with the spirit of his Divine Master, prayed 
with his parting breath for the salvation of his exe- 
cutioners, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." 
Acts vii, 58.) "Render to no man evil for evil." 
(Romans xii, 17.) 

The dungeon, the rack, the thumbscrew, and the 



Lecture X. 199 

sword played a darker role during the ascendency of 
atheism in France than in any other period of the 
world's history. The reign of terror was the legitimate 
child of free thought, and the fiends who crimsoned 
the streets of Paris with the blood of innocence, and 
strewed the valleys of France with lifeless corpses that 
rotted beneath the rays of the sun; the demons who 
filled the land with the desolation of war and the wail 
of woe, and the cry of anguish and sorrow, and the 
tears of widows and orphans, were the founders of 
Mr. Ingersoll's school. Yet the blustering infidel has 
not one word of reproach for their satanical works 
and hideous lives. These angels of blood and massacre 
are the divinities of Mr. Ingersoll's pantheon. 

"I want you to know that the Cross has been in 
partnership with the sword, and that the religion of 
Christ was established by murderers and hypo- 
crites." 

Was Christ a murderer? Were Matthew, Mark, 
Luke, and John murderers? Were Peter, Simon, and 
Jude murderers? Were the founders and propagators 
of the Gospel tyrants? Did they ever usurp the rights 
of others? Did they ever domineer over nations to 
whom they carried the glad tidings of salvation? Let 
no man call benefactors by the foul name of tyrants 
and hypocrites. The latter are ever actuated by mo- 
tives of self-interest, but the former labor and suffer 
and die for the advancement of nations and the weal 
of humanity. 

Any American, who, in visiting Mount Vernon 
and standing beneath that stately monument where 
the hero of the Revolution sleeps, would refuse to 
stoop and kiss the hallowed tomb that incloses 



200 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

the ashes of that stalwart son of Virginia, whose mem- 
ory is enshrined in the mighty heart of this broad Re- 
public; any man living under the shadow of the Stars 
and Stripes; any man enjoying the protection of this 
grand country, who would fail to venerate the grave of. 
General Washington, is not worthy to be called a 
citizen of the "land of the free and the home of the 
brave." On the same principle, any man, whether 
living in the Eastern or Western World, in the North- 
ern or Southern Hemisphere, who would denounce 
those dauntless souls who carried the torch of civiliza- 
tion to the benighted races, — that man merits the con- 
tempt of every pure mind and the hatred of every noble 
heart. I would kiss the spot consecrated by the foot- 
steps of Moses, and weep with the children of Hebrew 
blood over the demise of the noblest benefactor that 
ever sprung from the dust of ages. 

In fancy I march over the hills of Judea, and pour 
out my love and tears on every stone sanctified by the 
memory of her renowned prophets. I pass along the 
vale of Mamre, amidst the gentle music of the rippling 
streams, beneath the clustering grapevines and olive- 
trees that gaze into the limpid waves, to the stately 
ruins of Hebron; I go back in my reminiscences 
through the history of one hundred generations and 
the shadows of forty centuries, and I call up from the 
silent past the memory of the illustrious dead, and I 
bless the names of the patriarchs whose' ashes repose 
in the valley of Eschols. I visit the grave of Job, and 
I revere the very bones of a man whose life has 
preached the virtue of patience to the whole world. 
I journey to the home of the Virgin at Nazareth; I 
pass with her to Bethlehem, and seek refuge from the 



Lecture X. 201 

cold, brumal blast, within the sacred inclosure of that 
little crib which presented a spectacle to men and 
angels; I summon up the flood of sad and joyful 
thoughts that rolled through her troubled brain and 
filled her pure soul with blended feelings of agony 
and bliss when she kissed the face of her infant babe 
on that awful night, when the dreams of forty centuries 
were realized; and I call upon every maid, wife, and 
mother to bless the memory of that noble Virgin, 
whose stainless life has cast a halo of glory around 
her sex, and has made woman the guardian angel of 
the home and fireside, the sanctuary of purity and 
piety, and the guiding star that directs the footsteps 
of humanity, and shapes the destiny of nations. I fol- 
low the dauntless Peter in his peregrinations through 
Pontus and Galatia, Cappadocia and Bithynia, and I 
venerate the prison whose dank, dark, and dingy 
vaults threw back the voice of the fisherman when 
he sent forth his petition for the triumph of the Naz- 
arene and the conversion of the pagan world to the 
loving lessons of Christianity. I follow the itinerary 
of St. Paul through Pamphylia, and Phrygia, and 
Mysia, and Macedonia; I halt with him at Athens, and 
drink in the flood of inspiration that rolled from his 
sacred lips when he addressed the multitude from the 
hill of Mars. I journey with the apostle on his noble 
mission to the shores of the Tiber, where, for seven 
hundred years, the thunderbolts that rolled on high, 
and spoke from the dark, lowering welkin, shook the 
throne of kings, and kept alive the leaping flames on 
the altar of Jupiter. I sum up all his grand and 
glorious works, the perils and the agonies that he 
endured on sea and land, at home and abroad, among 



202 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

enemies and friends; and I press my lips to the 
battle-ax, all crimson-dyed with the gory flood that 
welled up from the heart of the Cilician when his head 
was severed from his body. I march with St. Thomas 
over the sultry plains of India; I follow the wake of 
St. John to the banks of the Xanthus ; I trace the path 
of St. Andrew to the arid plains of Scythia, and travel 
with him over the bleak steppes, where the lordly 
Volga flows on in his majestic march to the Southern 
sea. I accompany St. Philip to Asia, St. Bartholomew 
to Armenia, St. Matthew to the land of the gallant 
Lyrus, St. Simon to Mesopotamia, St. Luke to the 
burning sands of the desert of Arabia, and St. Matthias 
along the shores of Mareb, where he preached the 
gospel of light to the children of Ethiopia; and when 
I weigh the sacrifices that those men made for the 
civilization of the world, I pronounce them the grand- 
est souls and the most unselfish heroes that ever hal- 
lowed the earth by their presence. Will hypocrites 
give up comfort, joy, liberty, and life without any 
earthly remuneration? Did the heroes of the Cross 
receive any compensation for their untiring efforts 
and unceasing toils? Let us visit the Catacombs of 
the Eternal City, and view the places sanctified by 
martyr's blood; where Roman senators and Roman 
soldiers, Roman matrons and Roman nobles; where 
venerable old men, with hair silvered by the frost of 
fourscore winters, and tender children, till then ig- 
norant of earthly sorrows, and now sighing only for 
heavenly joys; where the master and the slave, the 
patrician and the plebeian, where wealth and poverty, 
age and beauty, knelt side by side upon the cold, damp 



Lecture X. 203 

floor, when lights blazed and incense burned in honor 
of the dread mystery of the New Testament. 

Let us join that noble missionary army who carried 
the banner of Christian hope to the benighted Goth 
and Vandal as they swept the entire continent of 
Europe with fire and sword, and left naught in their 
wake but smoking ruins and bloody streams. Let 
us follow Remegius across the Alps to the land of the 
Gaul; let us march with Ansgarius to the regions 
of the Polar Star, and listen to his wave of eloquence, 
as he appeals to the heart of the Northmen as- 
sembled beneath the broad canopy of heaven in the 
long twilight of an Arctic summer. Let us hearken 
to the flood of pathos poured forth in his realistic 
picture of the Man of Sorrows, when Constantine 
pleads with the dark race dwelling beyond the rugged 
peaks of the Carpathian Mountains. Let us set out 
with Augustine and his missionary band to drive the 
ancestral divinities from the chalk-white cliffs of 
Albion. Let us take our stand on the vineclad hills 
of ancient Caledonia, and gaze upon the noble- 
hearted and high-souled Palladius, whose flaming- 
words "resounded afar and wide over lake and 
brae and highland," and called the Pictish hordes to 
the portals of Christianity. Let us march with the 
child of sunny France from the mountains of Slemish 
to his native land, from the home of his ancestors to 
the throne of the Caesars, from the smiling vales of 
Tuscany to the ocean-leaguered isle that lay on the 
outskirts of the habitable globe, where he preached to 
the Druids, bards, and kings of the ancient regime. 
Can we ever forget the noble services of Boniface, 



204 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

who braved the perils of the German forests and 
preached the glad tidings of salvation to the chil- 
dren of Thuisto, and broke the bonds which centuries 
of superstition had welded around the limbs of the 
Teutonic race that had wandered for ages over the 
wild woods of their native country, and had bid 
defiance to the proudest conquerors that ever marched 
beneath the Roman eagles? 

After a thousand years the record of ancient 
giants is reproduced. The shores of India and China 
resound with the music of the gospel. The mag- 
nanimous Francis Xavier astonishes the Celestials 
with the severity of his penances, the frequency of 
his vigils, the toils of his journeys, and the godlike 
feats he performs, and the noble sacrifices he accepts, 
and the superhuman exertions he makes to extinguish 
the fires on pagan altars, and to recall the Mon- 
golian race to the inheritance promised to the chil- 
dren of Abraham. When the ship of the mariner 
turned its prow into the western ocean on that long 
and perilous voyage across the dark waters to the 
portals of Cathay, there stood at the helm a hem who 
will be known to the people of this great country, and 
to the exile of every land, and to the inhabitants of 
every region, and to the multitude of every age, until 
the knell of humanity shall sound its doleful tunes over 
the ruins of a dead world. If earth ever swelled the 
ranks of heaven, the Italian visionary stands to-day 
among the shining myriads. The Western World 
has been the scene of the noblest deeds that ever 
graced the page of history, and the apostles of truth 
are ranked first among the heroes of fair Columbia. 
We find the soldiers of the Cross, three hundred years 



Lecture X. 205 

ago, seeking out the dusky sons of the Everglades, 
traversing the immense plains of Texas, journeying 
along the shores of the Rio Grande and across the 
mountains of New Mexico. Long before the. first 
hut was built on the present site of Boston; long- 
before the Pilgrim Fathers had left their native heath ; 
when the Netherlands had not yet heard the groan 
and cry of the hounded Puritans; when the May- 
flower had not yet been baptized in the tears of a 
persecuted people, and when the Rock of Plymouth 
was the favorite resort of the seagull, we see the 
evangelists of the New World laboring among the 
Mohawks and the Algonquins, and among the tribes 
that lived on the Pacific coast and at the base of the 
Cascade Mountains. We follow their path along the 
frozen banks of the St, Lawrence, over the wilderness, 
crossing lakes and rivers and swamps. They had 
invaded the borders of Canada, and had camped on 
the heights of Quebec a century before the blood of the 
brave Wolfe dyed the purple heath on the plains of 
Abraham, and the valiant Montgomery perished 
before the gate of the city. Shall we trace the path 
of the noble Marquette as he bids farewell to his 
companions, and sets out on his long and hazardous 
journey over the lake regions of the North to the 
prairie of Illinois? Shall we listen to the dying sup- 
plication of Isaac Jogues, who is tortured by the 
savages for seventeen hours at the stake? If we turn 
our eyes to the sunny South, we meet the faces of 
men who stood high in camp and court in their 
native country, but who are now sacrificing their 
lives for the spiritual weal of the lost tribes of the 
house of David? Let us follow the apostle of Christ 



206 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

beyond the equator, over streams and bogs, and moors 
and mountains, until he halts to pitch his tent beneath 
the gleam of the Southern Cross; and we march on- 
ward and onward, and farther and farther; and the 
emblem of the Savior, engraven on the forest oak, 
tells us that the apostle has gone before us on his 
grand mission to the roving red man. Such were 
the men who established the religion of Jesus Christ. 
They were men who never dreamed of their own 
comforts, who were actuated by no selfish motives, 
who hesitated to make no sacrifice, whose souls were 
filled with the spirit of love, charity, and amiability; 
and among them there were no "murderers, tyrants, 
and hypocrites." 



M 



LECTURE XI. 

R. INGERSOLL says: "Do you believe that 
the real God, if there is one, ever killed a man 
for making hair-oil? And yet you find in the Pen- 
tateuch that God gave Moses a recipe for making 
hair-oil to grease Aaron's beard, and said if anybody 
else made the same hair-oil, he should be killed. And 
he gave him a formula for making ointment, and he 
said if anybody else made ointment like that, he 
should be killed. I think that is carrying patent-laws 
too far." 

The oil of unction (not hair-oil) used in the con- 
secration of the priest would naturally be regarded 
as something holy by a people whose priesthood and 
ritual and sacrifice were ordained by the Almighty. 
It was possible that some faithless child of Abraham 
would utilize the reverence of the people for sacred 
things, and would prepare this oil, and dispose of 
it at an enormous price. The laws of Moses con- 
demned the least injustice, and took measures to 
prevent every kind of wrong; and we are not sur- 
prised that the venerable legislator prohibited a fraud 
of this nature by severe penalties. Again, the people, 
seeing this oil in the hands of the merchant, would, 
no doubt, be scandalized; and many, taking advantage 
of this fact, would cast reflections on the dignity of 
the priesthood and the institutions of religion. 

The Colonel wants to know why God did not 
order the polygamist to be stoned to death instead 
of the man who would violate the Sabbath. In the 

207 



208 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

first place, polygamy is not contrary to natural laws, 
and, therefore, not an evil in itself, but may be evil in 
its consequences. If an act is good in itself, and the 
immediate results are good, we are justified in per- 
forming that act, although the remote consequences 
might not be laudable. Such is polygamy. The first 
end of matrimony is the propagation of the human 
species. Love and domestic bliss are merely acces- 
sories and contingencies that may or may not adorn 
the home of the bridal pair. It often occurs that the 
first violent flame of love that smote the hearts of 
the youthful couple, and led them to the altar of 
Hymen, does not continue beyond the days of their 
honeymoon, as the thousands of divorces that are 
annually granted in this country palpably demonstrate. 
Is a man justified in abandoning his wife because the 
fire of affection burns no longer in his soul? Must 
the woman break her vows because her eyes have 
gazed on nobler miens, and her heart has throbbed 
at the sight of other faces? Then you see that while 
love is an auxiliary to matrimony, and one that I 
highly recommend, yet it is not an essential part; and 
polygamy that may trammel the affection of the soul 
is not an essential evil, and may be tolerated. 

The law of the land does not punish a man for 
not loving his wife and children, and polygamy only 
interfered with the love and affection, but engendered 
no essential evils. But the law executes a man for 
the crime of treason; and the violation of the Sab- 
bath among the Jews was a denial of Divine author- 
ity, and therefore treason. 

Mr. Ingersoll says that, "I want to give you an 
idea or two in regard to the Christian religion. Of 



Lecture XL 209 

all the selfish things in this world, it is one man want- 
ing to get to heaven, caring nothing what becomes 
of the rest of mankind." 

Is the Christian religion based on that principle? 
The Bible abounds in expressions of God's love for 
man. "God so loved the world as to give his only 
begotten Son, that all who believe in him may not 
perish, but have eternal life." "Christ died for all 
men." We are admonished to make our lives con- 
formable with the life of Christ in all things, and hence 
our thoughts must be his thoughts, and our desires 
must be his desires; and as he wishes not the death 
of the sinner, but that he be converted, and live; as 
he wishes the salvation of all men, we must also wish 
that every soul created in time shall enjoy a blissful 
eternity. It is the spirit of Christian revelation that 
our wishes should be materialized in positive assist- 
ance. St. Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, writes to 
Timothy: "I desire therefore first of all, that sup- 
plications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings 
be made for all men; for kings, and for all those who 
are in high station, that we may lead a quiet and 
peaceful life in all piety and chastity; for this is good 
and acceptable in the sight of God, our Savior, who 
will have all men to be saved and to come to the 
knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy ii, 1.) "Con- 
fess, therefore, your sins one to another, and pray 
for one another that you may be saved, for the con- 
tinual prayer of the just man availeth much." 
(James v, 16.) 

Mr. Ingersoll says, "We are taught that fathers 
and mothers, brothers and sisters, can all be happy in 
heaven, no matter who may be in hell; that the hus- 



210 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

band can be happy there, with his wife, who would 
have died for him at any moment, in hell." 

Mr. Ingersoll should take a few lessons in the- 
ology. Grace is the light of the soul, which enlight- 
ens, purifies, and inflames. By the light of the sun 
we can behold all the beauties of nature, and by the 
light of grace we can see all the glories of the eternal 
kingdom. Mortal sin is the opposite of sanctifying 
grace; and the two are as incompatible in the same 
soul, as light and darkness in the same room. 
God loves whatever is good, and is drawn as 
irresistibly to the holy soul as a magnet to a piece 
of steel. Infinite sanctity pertains to the Divine es- 
sence; and mortal depravity can not dwell in the abode 
of infinite holiness. The soul is like an apartment 
with an aperture which emits the light that constantly 
shines. The Creator has given to man the gift of free 
will, and he can either shut or open the gate which 
incloses the soul in the darkness of iniquity, or expose 
it to the radiance of Divine grace. So you see that 
God, wishing the salvation of every creature, endows 
him with every blessing, and bestows upon him every 
grace; and if man voluntarily precludes the effulgence 
of God's genial rays and the flood of his golden 
beams, and places his soul in a condition that essen- 
tially bars it from realms of glory, the Creator is not 
responsible. 

Can the husband be happy in heaven when his wife 
is in hell? Carnal relations are holy when sanctified 
by Divine grace, and the union of friends in heaven 
will perhaps be a source of happiness, but insignificant 
in comparison with the infinite bliss of seeing God 
face to face, of hearing the melody of his voice, of 



Lecture XL 211 

inhaling the odor of his sanctity, and dwelling in the 
atmosphere of his Divinity. Corporal and temporal 
interests will be ingulfed and absorbed in the mighty 
ocean of spiritual and eternal existence. The sal- 
vation of friends can not augment, or the damnation 
of friends diminish, our felicity, which will be infinite. 

God is the best friend that man can have. He 
created the wife that loved you, and blessed her with 
every spiritual endowment; he whispered warning 
words to her soul through all the voices of the uni-. 
verse; he sent a guardian angel to walk by her side 
from the dawn to the sunset of her life. Should you 
love "the wife who would have died for you at any 
moment" more than the God that did die for you and 
for her; that suffered the awful torments of death 
from the moment that angels wept and sang over the 
manger, until the sun shrouded his face in the mantle 
of night, when the author of nature expired on the 
cross? She prized your corporal and temporal wel- 
fare; and in addition to this, God valued your spiritual 
and eternal life. 

Man will have remorse in hell, because the "mean 
things that he has done" have been inseparably inter- 
woven with his existence, and will cling to him for 
all eternity, to haunt him with their shadows, and to 
remind him what he has lost by indulging in his 
passions, and how easily he could have gained the 
wealth of heaven and the glory of the saints by open- 
ing the window of his soul to permit the ingress of 
that light that would have excited repentance and 
banished the shades of evil from their sanctuary in 
his heart. 

Man will have no remorse in heaven "for the mean 



212 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

things that he has done on earth," because the stain 
of their iniquity has been washed away in the blood 
which he applied to his soul by the co-operation of 
Divine assistance. If he once hated a fellow-being, 
he banished that hatred from his heart by reflecting 
on the fact that Christ died for that being, that Christ 
loves that being, that Christ established the Father- 
hood of God and the brotherhood of man, that all men 
are the children of the same parent, and the human 
race is but one great family gathered around the same 
board and the same fireside. Hence, meditating on 
these grand truths of Christianity, he learned to love 
the man who deflowered his daughter, allured his 
wife, seduced his sister, despoiled his home of do- 
mestic bliss, destroyed his fortune, murdered his 
brothers, assassinated his father, and shed the blood 
of his mother. He was willing to repair, and did 
repair, as far as it lay in his power, every injury that 
he had done to another; he restored his ill-gotten 
goods; he restored the fame of the maiden whose 
character he had blasted by the cruel invention of 
calumny; he restored the reputation of his neighbor, 
lent a helping hand to the poor and needy, and heark- 
ened to the widow's wail and the orphan's cry. That 
man's sins are obliterated forever, and he will enjoy 
undisturbed tranquillity in the kingdom of heaven; 
whereas the relentless, impenitent soul goes before the 
tribunal of justice, hugging his horrid crimes, and 
they will haunt him through the slowly-moving cycles 
of eternity. 

Does Mr. Ingersoll censure Infinite justice and 
Infinite sanctity for condemning to perpetual im- 
prisonment the guilty, cruel, vindictive soul that raised 



Lecture XL 213 

the voice of treason and the sword of rebellion? He 
might just as well cast opprobrium on the fair es- 
cutcheon of the State; he might as well attempt to 
asperse the snowy brow of justice, and to stab the 
Goddess of Liberty and the angel of love. Must the 
law of the land tolerate every thief, every murderer, 
and every cold-blooded assassin because an innocent 
brother will feel the pangs of grief, and will hide his 
face in shame and bow his head in sorrow? Must 
the parricide be pardoned because his death will pierce 
the fond and loving heart of mother? Shall the 
fratricide be exonerated, to heal the wounds and re- 
lieve the agony of a gentle sister? Shall the uxoricide 
be spared to silence the wails of tender children? 
Would Mr. Ingersoll condemn the Government that 
decrees the execution of a matricidal brother? As 
a reasonable man he could not. Why, then, does he 
hurl his anathemas against heaven's pearly throne, 
just because the Holy One can not allow the marble 
halls of the celestial Jerusalem to be stained by the 
footsteps of crime; because he can not allow the 
atmosphere of sanctity to be polluted with the breath 
of iniquity; because he can not allow the angelic 
harmonies to be broken by the voice of sin and the 
notes of blasphemy? 

"What will be the social condition of a gentleman 
in heaven who will admit that he never would have 
been there if he had not got scared? What must be 
the social position of an angel who will always admit 
that if another had not pitied him, he ought to have 
been damned." 

This is not Christian doctrine. The Bible teaches 
that. "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wis- 



214 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

dom;" but it speaks of a salutary fear which arises from 
a contemplation of his infinitude, and must be blended 
with love. Servile fear will not save us; love is 
essential. God shows "mercy to thousands of them 
that love him."' "Many sins are forgiven her because 
she hath loved much." (Luke vii, 47.) "If any one love 
me, he will keep my word; and my Father will love 
him, and he will come to him and will make an abode 
with him." (John xiv, 23.) 

The gentleman who gets to heaven can say that 
he is there because he loves God, and because God 
loves him. Without this love it is impossible to be 
saved. 

What must be the social position of Mr. Inger- 
soll's daughters, who will always admit that, if their 
father had not loved them, they might have been 
domestics in the homes of luxury, or poor outcasts 
of society, and the reproach of the people? Is it any 
humiliation for them to acknowledge that they enjoy 
all the comforts of life and all the pleasures of wealth 
and all the refined associations through the kindness 
of their father? So it is no disgrace to angels and 
men to acknowledge that they have been elevated to 
the supernatural state through the gratuitous gift of 
a loving God. 

"For instance, there is a man seventy years of age 
who has been a splendid fellow, and lived according 
to the laws of nature. Fie has got about him splendid 
children, whom he has loved and cared for with all 
his heart; but he did not happen to believe in this 
Bible; he did not believe that because some children 
made fun of a gentleman who was short of hair, God 
sent two bears and tore the little darlings to pieces." 



Lecture XL 215 

Judging from the way Mr. Ingersoll talks about 
mothers, wives, and children, one would think that 
he was the son of every mother, the husband of every 
wife, and the father of every child that ever lived 
and breathed and died in all the ages of the world's 
history. He does not seem to realize the fact that 
he is teaching the doctrine of infidelity, that he is 
destroying the te:ider conscience of maidenhood and 
motherhood, and poisoning the plastic mind of child- 
hood and womanhood, and ingulfing the nation in 
the flood of atheism which destroys the sense of 
responsibility, and sweeping thousands into the flames 
of hell, and all for the sake of the paltry gold that 
he is anxious should not be expended in the erection 
of temples where the voice of God appeals to the 
heart of humanity, where the seed of virtue is planted 
in the soul of innocence, and blooms, and grows, and 
flourishes in the formation of true manhood and loyal 
citizenship. 

Let us analyze the character that he has proposed 
for our edification. Either that man disbelieves in 
the Scriptures because the arguments advanced for 
their inspiration are invalid, or because the incidents 
related seem unreasonable to him. In the first hypoth- 
esis, we can understand that he is not responsible for 
his infidelity, and there is no rebellion against Divine 
authority; and we hold that Infinite mercy will not 
punish him for this weakness, and he will be rewarded 
by temporal or natural gifts for the natural virtues that 
he has practiced. I meet a beggar on the wayside, 
and I tell him that if he will call at my residence, I 
will give him a fortune sufficient to place him in a 
state of opulence the rest of his life. The mendicant 



216 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

doubts my declaration; he can not believe that I have 
such ample wealth, and he refuses to call. Am I to 
be censured for not forcing him to accept the do- 
nation? You can not expect God to enrich those with 
infinite bliss who repel his offers. If the person in 
question recognized the potency of the argument 
furnished to substantiate the truth of Scriptural in- 
spiration, and rejected the Bible for the reason that 
the facts contained in the Sacred Record are repug- 
nant to his ideas of justice, then he is guilty of the 
crime of placing his mental caliber above the Divine 
intellect; he is guilty of the crime of measuring the 
infinite by the finite, of degrading God to the position 
of a creature, an imperfect being, and elevating his 
judgment to an infinite magnitude and divine per- 
fection. 

Louis XIV was called a despot because he said, 
"I am the State," thereby placing the majesty of the 
king above the majesty of the Government. In this 
country the President of the Republic would be exe- 
cuted for high treason should he be guilty of rebellion 
against the Government, and when his corpse would 
dangle from the gallows, Mr. Ingersoll would be the 
first to sing Hallelujah. Is it reasonable to believe 
that God must condone every malicious rebellion 
against his authority? The traitor or the rebel may 
protest his allegiance to the secular Government, and 
pour out his sorrow in penitential tears, yet it will 
avail nothing, and the law demands his death; but the 
unbeliever may laugh at the Bible all his life, and 
ridicule the credulity of the faithful; and still, if, at the 
last moment, he sends forth a fervent prayer, if he 
emits but one sigh and drops but one tear, that 



Lecture XL 217 

prayer, we believe, will echo beyond the starlit vault; 
that sigh will roll up the marble halls of justice to 
the crystal throne of mercy; that tear will swell into 
a mighty billow that will sweep away all the stains 
of life, and the angels will come with their golden 
lyres to sing the conquest of grace, the triumph of 
mercy and the victory of the soul over the powers of 
darkness and the shadows of death. 

- "Then there is another man who made hell on 
earth for his wife, who had to be taken to the insane 
asylum, and his children were driven from home, and 
were wanderers and vagrants in the world. But 
just between the last sin and the last breath this 
fellow got religion, and he never did anything but 
take his medicine; he never did a solitary human be- 
ing a favor, and he died and went to heaven." 

I presume that Mr. Ingersoll meant to say that 
this man affiliated "with some Church and accepted the 
Christian faith, and through that faith he was saved 
without any other consideration; and I want to stig- 
matize that doctrine as unchristian, and to inform my 
audience that it is not found in the Bible. When the 
young man went to Jesus and asked him what he 
should do that he might enter into eternal life, the 
Savior replied, "Keep the commandments." That is 
one of the essential conditions of salvation. St. Paul 
says that "The works of the flesh are manifest, which 
are fornication, uncleanness, immodesty, luxury, idol- 
atry, witchcraft, enmities, contentions, emulations, 
wraths, quarrels, dissensions, sects, envies, murders, 
drunkenness, revelings, and such like. Of which I 
foretell you, as I have foretold you, that they who do 
such things shall not obtain the kingdom of heaven." 



218 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

(Galatians v, 19.) "Nor the effeminate, nor thieves, 
nor drunkards, nor covetous, nor railers, nor extor- 
tioners, shall possess the kingdom of God." (1 Corin- 
thians vi, 10.) 

What must we do to be saved, according to 
Christianity? Besides faith, we must first keep the 
commandments, as we have already seen. Secondly, 
we must have the virtue of charity, and assist the 
poor and lonely, and help those that are in distress. 
"He that hath two coats, let him give to him that 
hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do in like 
manner." (Luke iii, 11.) "Give alms, and, behold, all 
things are clean unto you." (Luke xi, 41.) ."Sell 
what you possess, and give alms. Make to yourself 
bags which grow not old, a treasure in heaven which 
faileth not, where the thief approacheth not, nor the 
moth corrupteth." (Luke xii, 33.) "When thou 
makest a feast, call upon the poor, the feeble, the lame, 
and the blind, and thou shalt be blessed, because they 
have not wherewith to make thee recompense; for 
recompense shall be made thee at the resurrection 
of the just." (Luke xiv, 13.) The apostle of the 
nations recommends charity in the highest terms, and 
declares that this virtue is absolutely necessary for 
salvation. "If I speak with the tongues of men and 
of angels, and have not charity, I become a sounding 
brass or a tinkling cymbal ; and if I should have proph- 
ecy, and should know all mysteries and all knowledge, 
and if I should have all faith, so that I could remove 
mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing." 
(1 Corinthians xiii.) It is evident from this passage 
that the strongest faith, unaccompanied with charity 
or perfect love of God and man, is insufficient to save 



Lecture XL 219 

us. Nor will external acts of benevolence turn aside 
the wave of destruction, and extinguish the flame of 
Divine wrath, unless it come from a loving heart. 
"If I should distribute all my goods to feed the poor, 
and deliver my body to be burned, and have not char- 
ity, it profiteth me nothing." (1 Corinthians xiii.) 
Then the holy apostle describes the nature of this 
grand virtue. "Charity is patient, is kind; charity en- 
vieth not, dealeth not perversely; is not puffed up; is 
not ambitious; seeketh not her own; is not provoked 
to anger; thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, 
but rejoiceth with the truth; beareth all things; be- 
lieveth all things; hopeth all things; endureth all 
things. Now these three: faith, hope, and charity; 
but the greatest of these is charity." (1- Corin- 
thians xiii.) 

On the last day, when all mankind shall be as- 
sembled in the valley of judgment, the Son of man 
shall appear in a cloud of glory, and he shall "separate 
them one from another, as the shepherd separateth 
the sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep 
on his right hand, but the goats on his left; then 
shall the King say to them that shall be on his right 
hand: Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess ye 
the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation 
of the world." Why shall he give them that glorious 
kingdom? Listen to his own Divine words: "For I 
was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, 
and you gave me to drink ; T was a stranger, and you 
took me in; naked, and you covered me; sick, and 
you visited me; I was in prison, and you came to 
see me. Then shall the just answer him, saying, Lord, 
When did we see thee hungry, and fed thee; thirsty, 



22o The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

and gave thee to drink; and when did we see thee 
a stranger, and took thee in; or naked, and covered 
thee; or when did we see thee sick or in prison, and 
came to see thee? And the King, answering, shall 
say to them: Amen, I say to you, as long as you 
did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to 
me. Then he shall say to them also that shall be on 
his left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into ever- 
lasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his 
angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me not 
to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me not to drink; 
I was a stranger, and you took me not in; naked, and 
you covered me not; sick and in prison, and you did 
not visit me. Then they shall also answer him, saying, 
Lord, when did we see thee hungry, or thirsty, or a 
stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not 
minister to thee? Then he shall answer them, say- 
ing: Amen, I say to you, as long as you did it not 
to one of these least, neither did you do it to me." 
(Matthew xxv.) The cause of salvation and repro- 
bation is clearly laid down in these quotations; and 
Mr. Ingersoll's impossible examples are not found 
either in the Bible or in the doctrines of Christianity. 

The man who is kind to his family, the widows 
and the orphans, the homeless and the stranger, will 
be saved; and the man who persecutes his wife and 
children, and drives them into the cold, pitiless world 
without food and raiment; the man who hates his 
brother, and who never did a solitary favor for any 
person on earth, can not expect a "harp" in the king- 
dom of heaven. 

"We sit by the fireside, and see the flames and 
sparks fly up the chimney — everybody happy, and the 



Lecture XL 221 

cold wind and sleet beating on the window ; and out on 
the doorstep is a mother with a child on her breast, 
freezing. How happy it makes a fireside, that beauti- 
ful contrast! And we say, God is good." 

Why are those contrasts? On account of man's 
perversity. The impoverished widow is not the work 
of God, but of man. God wishes all men to be happy, 
both in this world and the endless world beyond the 
river of life. He has commanded us to be kind and 
charitable to each other on earth, that we may journey 
down the vista of years together, and pass beyond 
the gulf of time, where our friendship and love will 
be sealed with the mystic kiss of immortality. 

In finishing my reply to Ingersoll's "Mistakes of 
Moses" and his fierce arraignment of Christianity and 
Judaism, I must advert to the wonderful deeds with 
which faith has glorified the earth. To-night my 
thoughts fly upon the wings of fancy over the trackless 
and wayless sands of time to the fountain of our race, 
and I gaze with ecstatic bliss upon the silvery stream 
of untarnished humanity. The rhapsody of the 
psalmist, the vision of the prophet, the dream of the 
oracle, the song of the bard, and the harp of the muse 
have sketched but faint images of the brilliant cre- 
ations and the gorgeous embellishments, and the soft 
luxuriance, and the jeweled pageantry of fair Utopia, 
the Paradise of pleasure, the Eden of joy, the cradle 
of our race. In that realm of living phantoms the 
glory of the Divine Architect was displayed in rippling 
streams and gurgling rills, and limpid brooks and 
placid lakes; in verdant hills and shady dells, and 
sunny vales and smiling leas; in bosky plains and 
grassy lawns, and sighing woods and whispering 



222 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

groves ; in the lights and shadows ; in the brilliant tints 
and dazzling hues which lay upon mountain-peak and 
moonlit wave; in the music of the spheres, and in the 
glitter of the stars, and in the azure depths of skies 
studded with flaming orbs and gleaming constella- 
tions. This was the golden age of the human race; 
and this age, in the mind of the Creator, was destined 
to continue forever. His providence had surrounded 
man with all the joys and comforts that the human 
heart could desire. He intended that no sorrow should 
ever enter into> the sacred abode of pristine man. He 
intended that the cry of pain and the shriek of agony 
and the groan of death should never resound among* 
its umbrageous bowers, and echo along its crystal 
streams. Peace was upon the face of nature, and 
love and friendship linked together all forms of life. 
The animals of the earth bore no enmity to each 
other, and they regarded man as the lord of creation. 
The gay squirrel played, and the robin built his nest, 
and the lark caroled his matin lay, and the crow 
spread his sable wings amidst the forest oaks, and 
started not at the roar of the lion and the bark of the 
wolf, and felt no fear at the sound of the creeping 
serpent and the mighty bird of prey. The chirping 
of the thrush and the wren, the song of the finch and 
the sparrow, the voice of the bunting and the war- 
bler, the cooing of the pigeon and the dove, the caw 
of the raven and the rook, swelled the grand sym- 
phony that floated on the gentle breeze, and filled the 
air with nature's sweetest melodies. But this age 
passed like a, meteor. Man refused to obey the Cre- 
ator, and offered incense upon the idol of passion, 
and God's wrath fell upon the brow of smiling nature. 



Lecture XL 223 

Roses became thorns, and flowers were changed into 
thistles; joy and laughter were choked by sobs and 
sighs, and wreaths of smiles were drowned in floods 
of tears. The history of the buried ages has been the 
story of suffering, and the hymn of the nations has 
been sung by the angel of sorrow. Famine and pes- 
tilence, storms and clouds, heat and cold, frost and 
snow, lightnings and tempests, flames and floods, have 
combined- their forces to desolate every field, to blight 
every herb, to seal every fountain, to wither every 
face, to darken every home, and sadden every hearth. 
Nemesis is armed with the quiver and the bow, 
the lance and the spear. The chariot of Mars is un- 
chained; the flaming breath of the battle-steed mingles 
with the shimmer of the moon and the sheen of the 
sun; the bugle of the war-god chimes with the howl 
of the tempest and the wail of the deep ; and the eagle, 
flying across the heavens, cries with the voice of 
seven thunders, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabitants 
of the earth! But amidst this mighty cataclysm of 
desolation I see the white-plumed angel of religion and 
love spreading her wings to the breeze, and floating 
upon waves of music and light and glory. She bears 
in her snowy bosom a balm which assuages the pain 
of every heart, which wreathes every face into smiles 
of joy, which crowns every sorrow and every agony 
with gems of bliss, and touches every sigh and every 
wail with the mystic wand of the muse. Religion is 
the angel of charity that seeks the child of sorrow 
and the son of misfortune. She is seen in every place, 
administering to them that sit in desolation and dark- 
ness, and pour out their sighs and tears over the loss 
of friends, the death of parents, the poverty and trials 



224 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

and misfortunes that haunt the footsteps of childhood 
and the shadows of tottering age. She inflames 
no dark human passion; she leaves no burning homes 
and blighted fields in her wake. She leads no mailed 
hosts and martial bands to the dark and bloody plain. 
Her battle-field is in the hospital. Her weapons are 
words as soft as the moon, and as gentle as the dawn; 
her victims are pallid faces restored to the bloom of 
health; dim and sunken eyes filled with sparkling 
gleams of joy and laughter; broken hearts throbbing 
with the pulse of new life and high hope, and the 
chords of desolate souls quavering with the touch of 
Apollo's magic breath. The goddess of charity knows 
no bounds; her religion is the religion of love; her 
shrine is suffering humanity, and her temple is the 
domed cathedral of the universe. She gives food to 
the hungry, drink to the thirsty, and clothing to the 
naked. She bestows kindness upon the stranger, con- 
soles the prisoner, visits the sick, and buries the dead. 
She discriminates against no race, no color, and no 
creed. She loves the children of darkness as well as 
the children of light; she loves the infidel as well as 
the Christian, the atheist as well as the faithful. Her 
love comprehends all peoples. It is broader than the 
earth and deeper than the sea. 

Love is charity; and charity is religion. Love is 
the law of God and the law of Christ. It permeates 
Judaism and Christianity. When we look through the 
dim and distant ages; when we gaze upon the earth 
to-day, and behold the works of charity that have been 
erected by Christian hearts and Christian hands ; when 
we stand beneath the shadow of mighty piles that 
shelter the orphan and the widow, the infirm and the 



Lecture XL 225 

aged, the homeless and the stranger, the sick and the 
dying; and when we reflect that these magnificent 
institutions were built in Christian lands and by the 
offerings and sacrifices of Christian souls, we call up 
the shade of the Nazarene, and we bless his memory. 
We bless his memory in the name of every sorrow that 
sought refuge within those hallowed walls. We bless 
his memory in. the name of every suffering that rested 
upon the couch of comfort. We bless his memory in 
the name of every fevered brow that reposed upon 
pillows of down. We bless his memory in the name 
of every agony that has been touched and alleviated 
by the angel of love. We bless his memory in the 
name of every limb that has been liberated from tor- 
turing pains. We bless his memory in the name of 
every cry that has been transformed into a canticle 
of joy. We bless his memory in the name of every 
tear that has glittered and glistened in the smiling 
eddies of dimpled faces. 

When I gaze upon the magnificent institutions of 
charity that cover this broad land, I wish I could 
transform the stones of those edifices into golden 
harps; and I wish I could string those harps with 
Paean's silken chords. I wish I could transform the 
bricks into organ-keys, the nails into bugles, the studs 
into cymbals, the joists into trumpets, the rafters into 
psalteries; I wish I could put these instruments of 
song into eternal harmony, to hymn, in chorus with 
the angels, the pure, noble, generous, grand, sublime, 
exalted philanthropy of the thousands of Christian 
souls whose love for humanity has soothed every sor- 
row and gilded every grief. 

Love is the keynote of religion. God has created 



226 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

the universe for the happiness of his creatures. For 
this purpose he has made the human soul, and im- 
pressed upon her the shadow of his glory; for this 
purpose he has endowed her with will, memory, and 
intelligence, that she might study the ways of the 
Creator, the truths of eternity, the vanity of human 
greatness, the grandeur of spiritual perfection, and 
the magnitude of final rewards for struggles endured 
and victories won; that she might conquer the power 
of darkness, and pass through the pearly gates, and 
join the seraphic legions in singing their musical 
antiphons, and in chanting their glorious doxologies. 
For this purpose the Son of God became incarnate; 
for this purpose the Floly Ghost has consecrated the 
soul by his Divine presence, and made her the ever- 
lasting temple of his love; for this purpose God has 
sent his angels to guide our footsteps along the rocky 
heights to the great crystal mountain, where the glory 
of the universe is reflected, where floods of light and 
strokes of harmony, where the sound of psaltery and 
harp, where the sound of flute and symphony, where 
the sound of cymbal and choir delight the heart of the 
King, and regale the countless hosts that ever throng 
the halls of glory. 



LECTURE XII. 

" JV /I AN advances as he ceases to fear the gods, and 
i V I learns to love his fellow-men. It is all, in my 
judgment, a question of intellectual development. Tell 
me the religion of any man, and I will tell the degree 
he works on the intellectual thermometer of the 
world." 

We have already seen that fraternal charity is the 
fundamental law of Christianity; and, therefore, it is 
not necessary for a man to be an atheist or an infidel 
to love his fellow-men. We have already seen the 
works of the Christian Church towards every form 
of human misery, and we defy Mr. Ingersoll to pro- 
duce the counterpart of this grand picture of mercy 
and love among the ranks of his fraternity. 

Is atheism essential to cerebral development? 
Are the most illiterate and savage peoples found 
among the devotees of religion? Has atheism ever 
engendered the thoughts that permeate the works of 
Homer, who beheld the throne of gods on "the 
Olympian height," and saw "Jove ascending from 
watery bowers," and leading "the long train of ethereal 
powers, when, like the morning mist in early day, 
rose from the flood the daughters of the sea?" . 

Pericles, Demosthenes, and Alcibiades; Hesiod, 
Pindar, and Pythagoras; Aristarchus, Euclid, and 
Archimedes; Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates; Sophocles, 
^Eschylus, and Euripides, — these mighty minds of 
old, have touched all the shores and scaled all the 
heights of human thought and erudition. The scholar 

227 



228 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

of the nineteenth century takes the lofty intellects 
of Greece for his models. Yet the bards of Hellas and 
Ionia wandered to the mountains of Boeotia, to drink 
the health of Delius, and to deck the brow of Clio 
with Flora's choicest garlands. Phidias and Praxit- 
eles, Scopas and Lysippus, who created the Elgin 
marbles to adorn the Parthenon, who chiseled the 
sigh of Venus and the joy of Cupid, the mirth of 
Bacchus and the tears of Niobe, worshiped the flame 
of Phcebus, and wooed the smile of Diana, and cele- 
brated the feasts of Saturn with licentious sports and 
wild orgies. This was an age of a "barbarous religion 
and mental sheen," and this shows that those who are 
the lowest in the scale of superstition might be the 
highest on "the intellectual thermometer of the world." 
Therefore, Mr. Ingersoll did not find "the rude daub 
of yellow mud" and the "rude dugout" and the 
"tom-tom," and all his other wondrous sights of 
savagery, among those who believed in gods and 
devils. 

The Colonel claims that intellectual power is the 
strongest weapon against religious faith. Has the 
temple of skepticism ever been adorned with a Shake- 
speare, a Byron, or a Scott? Dante, Petrarch, and 
Tasso- — those sweet bards of Tuscan song — knelt at 
the shrine of religion, adored at the foot of the Cross, 
and placed their hopes in the resurrection of Christ. 
Milton and Wordsworth, Goldsmith and Moore, Pope 
and Dryden, Longfellow and Bryant, Emerson and 
Poe, paid homage to the Eternal Power, and sang the 
dreams of immortality. 

We are indebted to the so-called Dark Ages for 
Giunta, Guido, Raphael, Angelo, Domenichino, Titian, 



Lecture XII. 229 

Caracci, Leonardo da Vinci, and Correggio, who have 
painted the beautiful "landscapes that enrich palaces" 
and adorn the majesty of temples, whose genius "has 
clad marble in such a personality that it seems almost 
impudent to touch them without an introduction." 
Ts it not strange that Mr. Ingersoll must look for 
those masterpieces of art in the dark cathedral isles, 
where Italian painters worshiped and Christian sculp- 
tors sleep? 

We are indebted to those ages of faith for the 
invention of paper, illuminated manuscripts, the art 
of printing, and the mariner's compass, which has 
directed the course of the ship over the billowy wave, 
through mists and clouds, and storms and tempests. 

We are indebted to the Christians of the Middle 
Ages for the establishment of banks, post-offices, the 
invention of spectacles, gunpowder, the erection of sev- 
enty-two universities and hundreds of public schools. 
We are indebted to the Christians of the Middle Ages 
for the revival of the ancient languages and the for- 
mation of modern tongues, the sweetness of Italian, 
the beauty of Spanish, the wealth of French, and the 
force of German, and the birth of a new school of 
poets, whose conceptions and sentiments enriched the 
literature of every clime. We are indebted to the 
Christians of the Middle Ages for the development 
of agriculture, which turned the somber forests and 
naked hills and desolate plains and stagnant moors 
of Europe into fertile fields and golden orchards and 
fruitful vineyards and artistic lawns and luxuriant 
gardens. We are indebted to Guido, a Christian of 
the twelfth century for the alphabetical arrangement 
of musical notes in the invention of the gamut, 



230 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

which created a new era in the art of song-. We are 
indebted to the Christians of the Middle Ages for the 
advancement of the mathematical science, the art of 
staining glass, for the cultivation of the science of 
botany and jurisprudence, and the stimulus given to 
architecture, which was displayed in those grand 
temples, adorned with columns, and abacuses, and 
cornices, and entablatures, and traceries, and turrets, 
and towers, and pinnacles, that rose one above an- 
other until they were lost in the purple sheen of 
heaven, and "proclaimed eternity in the presence of 
the tomb, and announced immortality on the ashes 
of the grave." 

We are indebted to the Middle Ages for the dis- 
coveries and explorations and geographical lore of 
Rubruquis, Ascelin, John de Piano, Carpini, Vasco 
da Gama, Marco Polo, and Sir John Mandeville, the 
philosophy of Aquinas, Albert the Great, and Roger 
Bacon. Ferdinand, Isabella, Jean Perez, and Colum- 
bus worshiped at the altar of Christ. John and "Se- 
bastian Cabot, who discovered the North American 
continent, and traced the coast from Labrador to Cape 
Hatteras, Vincente Yanez Pinzon, Pedro Nino, 
Alonzo de Ojeda, Diago de Lepe, and Rodrigo de 
Bastides were members of the old Christian Church. 
Cabral, Gasper Cortereal, Vespucci, Cortez, Pizarro, 
Vasco Nunez de Balboa, Cordova, Las Casas, Ponce de 
Leon, Ayllon, Gomez, Narvaez, Juan Juarez, De Soto, 
Melendez, Le Salle, Marquette, Joliet, Cartier, Cham- 
plain, Gourgues, Ribault, Laudonniere, — these are 
among the valiant Christian heroes that have 
stamped their names on the shores of the New 
World. Gilbert, Raleigh, Goswold, Smith, Henry 



Lecture XII. 231 

Hudson, Penn, Calvert, Frobisher, and John Davis 
were disciples of the Nazarene, and accepted the 
miracles of the Bible. Abbe Debaize was one of 
the explorers of the Dark Continent, and Father 
Desgidius and Petitot have made their names famous 
all over the world for the geographical knowledge 
they have imparted to the scientists of this age. Coper- 
nicus, Galileo, Cassini, Bianchini, Maraldi, Cas- 
telli, Gassendi, Piazzi, Orioli, Picard, Leverrier, De 
Vico, Secchi, Perry, Tycho Brahe, Alexander Guy, 
Pascal, Descartes, Cauchy, Viviani, Borelli, Lana 
Tourier, Gramme, Blasco de Garay, — these are but a 
few of the illustrious names that form the noble galaxy 
of Christians who have adorned the immortal page of 
science. I could easily fill a volume with the endless 
catalogue of eminent men, among every denomination 
of Christianity, who have advanced the weal of human- 
ity in all the departments of lore, in all the branches of 
art, in all the fields of thought. Catholic and Protest- 
ant stand side by side in the march of progress, in the 
triumph of genius, in the promotion of learning, in the 
advancement of the world, in the creation of art, in the 
refinement of society, in the embellishment of letters, 
in the enhancement of material splendor, in the pros- 
perity of nations, and in the dissemination of comfort, 
joy, and bliss throughout the world. 

Come forth, Ingersoll, with thy heroes, and place 
them in comparison with the mighty army of Christian 
philosophers, astronomers, poets, dramatists, musi- 
cians, mathematicians, statesmen, orators, and naviga- 
tors. Has the school of atheism produced brighter 
minds than Bacon, Newton, Boyle, Clarke, Nicole, 
Malebranche, Leibnitz, Grotius, La Bruyere, Arnaud, 



232 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

Racine, Moliere, and Goethe? Have the thoughts of 
Ingersoll surpassed the genius of Machiavel, Sir 
Thomas More, Mariana, Bodin, Puffendorf, and 
Locke? The poetry and eloquence of Ingersoll have 
never thrilled the soul of humanity like the silvery 
notes and deep pathos and lofty conceptions of Basil, 
and Ambrose, and Chrysostom, and Bossuet,and Fene- 
lon, and Cyprian, and Jerome, and Bourdaloue, and 
Massillon, and Sherlock, and Stillingfleet, and Can- 
ning, and Brougham, and North, and Francis, and 
Burke, and Sheridan, and Grattan, and Flood, and 
Curran, and O'Connell, and Gladstone, and Webster. 

It is evident from the few immortal names that I 
have culled from the page of Christianity that Mr. In- 
gersoll will not find the verity of his assertions among 
the believers of a crucified Savior, and that he must 
search other fields for his "dugout," and his "tom- 
tom," and his "rude daub of yellow mud." 

"Whoever has quit growing, he is orthodox, 
whether in art, politics, religion, philosophy. Ortho- 
dox is that which rots, and heresy is that which grows 
forever. Orthodoxy is the night of the past, full of 
darkness and superstition, and heresy is the eternal 
coming day." 

Religion is different from science and philosophy, 
for religion comes from God and must be perfect in 
itself. If you hold the opinion that you can improve 
the dogmas of revelation, then you must contend that 
you can embellish the work of Divine Wisdom; then 
you are superior to Omnipotence; then God is imper- 
fect; then he loses the attribute of infinitude, and ceases 
to be the Supreme, Eternal, Self-Existent Being. We 
can develop the purposes of Christianity in the appli- 



Lecture XII. 233 

cation of its tenets to the regeneration of the world, in 
the mollification of the savage tribes and rude peoples, 
in the exaltation of virtue and the dethronement of 
vice, in the cultivation of domestic affection and fra- 
ternal love; but these victories are accomplished and 
these passions are subdued not by the abolition, aug- 
mentation, or alteration of the original creed, but by 
the agency of moral precepts and the mediation of 
evangelical counsels, contained in the message of Je- 
sus Christ. 

Lord Macaulay says that "revealed religion is not 
of the nature of a progressive science. All Divine 
truth is, according to the doctrine of the Protestant 
Churches, recorded in certain books, nor can all the 
discoveries of all philosophers in the world add a single 
verse to any of those books. It is plain, therefore, 
that in divinity there can not be a progress analogous 
to that which is constantly taking place in pharmacy, 
geology, and navigation. A Christian in the fifth cen- 
tury, with a Bible, is neither better nor worse situated 
than a Christian of the nineteenth century with a Bible, 
candor and natural acuteness being, of course, sup- 
posed equal. It matters not at all that the compass, 
printing, gunpowder, steam, gas, vaccination, and a 
thousand other discoveries and inventions, which were 
unknown in the fifth century, are familiar to the nine- 
teenth century. None of these discoveries and inven- 
tions have the slightest bearing on the question 
whether man is justified by faith alone, or whether the 
invocation of the saints is an orthodox practice." 
(Essays, Vol. II, page 468.) 

It is unnecessary to state that Macaulay was an 
orthodox, for he held the opinion that "religion is not 



234 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

a progressive science," and that orthodoxy was not 
"that which rots;" that orthodoxy is not the "night of 
the past, full of darkness and superstition;" and Mr. 
Ingersoll must admit that Rothley's great historian, 
essayist, poet, and staesman was ever the first to climb 
those lofty Alpine heights of thought to welcome the 
first streaks that announced the dawn of "the eternal 
coming day, the light of which strikes the grand fore- 
heads of the intellectual pioneers of the world." 

Having viewed all the works of the human race, 
from the state of the naked savage to the men of the 
present age, Mr. Ingersoll then tells us that he "saw 
a row of human skulls, from the lowest skull that has 
been found — the Neanderthal skull — up to the best 
skulls of the last generation ;-and I saw," says he, "that 
there was the same difference between those skulls as 
there was between the products of those skulls, and I 
said to myself, After all, it is a simple question of in- 
tellectual development." 

I have very little respect for the intellectual devel- 
opment of a man who could deliver the nonsense con- 
tained in the above extract, and I entertain a very 
unfavorable opinion of the skull of a man who could 
be duped by the stories told of the Neanderthal skull. 

Dr. Zahn says on this question : "Referring to the 
Canstatt and the Neanderthal skulls, about which so 
much has been written, and the numerous theories 
based on them, Dr. Brinton well observes that 'it 
should be recognized, once for all, that there is no sort 
of foundation for these dreams. In neither instance 
did the locality in which these skulls were found guar- 
antee them any high antiquity.' The same views were 
expressed at the meeting Agust, 1892, by the German 



Lecture XII. 235 

Anthropological Association, by such speakers as Von 
Holder, Virchow, Kollman, and Fraas. Their argu- 
ments leave no room to doubt the importance of these 
remains." (Bible, Science, and Faith, p. 278.) 

James Geikie,in his "Pre-historic Europe," does not 
claim any particular antiquity for these skulls, nor does 
he even contend that they are manifestations of a sav- 
age age. John D. Baldwin quotes the ablest authori- 
ties as to the nature of these remains. In his ''Pre- 
historic Nations," he writes that "Sir John Lubbock 
and others mention only two human skulls that can be 
referred to the most ancient period of the Stone Age, 
and the antiquity of one of these is doubtful. Of the 
other, known as the Engis skull, Mr. Huxley says in 
his 'Man's Place in Nature:' 'There is no mark of deg- 
radation about any part of its structure. It is, in fact, 
a fair average human skull, which might have be- 
longed to a philosopher or might have contained the 
thoughtless brains of a savage.' Sir John Lubbock 
says 'it might have been that of a modern European, 
so far, at least, as form is concerned.' This seems to 
be an explicit contradiction of the development the- 
ory." (Pre-historic Nations, p. 53.) 

So you see that Mr. Ingersoll has been sadly duped 
with that old invention of the Neanderthal skull. Some 
one told him that that was the skull of a savage, and 
forthwith his vivid imagination was put in motion and 
he dreamed that he saw the "den in which crawled the 
base and meaner instincts of mankind, adorned with 
the rude god with four legs, a half dozen arms, and sev- 
eral noses." He dreamed that he saw the "skin of a 
porcupine, which this same savage pulled over his or- 
thodox head; and the plow made of a crooked stick, 



236 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

attached to the horn of an ox by some twisted straw," 
and the gods creating famine, and man praying to the 
Powers of Heaven. He dreamed that he beheld in 
that skull a "devil factory," in which was hatched the 
idea of hell and flames and tortures, and he concludes 
his vision with the thought that the idea of future pun- 
ishment for the wicked and the doctrine of the atone- 
ment originated in the Neanderthal skull. We are not 
surprised that the mind that is capable of inventing the 
"Mistakes of Moses" and of finding teeth three times 
the length of the forehead of a skull which, eminent 
scientists claim, has all the indications and charac- 
teristics of being the skull of a philosopher of the nine- 
teenth century — we are not astonished that such a 
driveler would tell such extravagant tales. We are 
prepared to learn that the wonderful skull of Ingersoll, 
which has discovered truths that have been concealed 
for ages — we are prepared to learn from this great 
skull that the ancient Testament has been borrowed 
from the "Arabian Nights," and that Christianity was 
founded by Joseph Smith. 

Mr. Ingersoll says that "the moment you drive the 
devil out of theology, there is nothing left worth speak- 
ing of. The moment they drop the devil, away goes 
atonement." More than a century ago Voltaire said: 
"Sathan! C'est le Christianisme tout entier; pas de 
Sathan, pas de Sauveur — (Satan! This is Christianity 
entire; no Satan, no Savior.") It seems that Mr. In- 
gersoll has borrowed his ideas from the Sage of Fer- 
ney, as he has in many other cases. 

The devil is not necessary for the atonement. Man 
may acquiesce to the gratification of his desires with- 
out the suggestion of evil spirits and the incentive of 



Lecture XII. 237 

fiery demons. The fiends of hell may, and do, inflame 
the passions of the human heart, but do not create 
them. Again, atonement consists in restoring hu- 
manity to its supernatural rights, which it had forfeited 
by disloyalty and rebellion, and this may be accom- 
plished without the existence of hell and Satan. 

"There is more real charity in the world to-day 
than ever before," says Mr. Ingersoll. 

Is there more charity to-day in England than there 
was five hundred years ago? Where are your proofs 
for that assertion? Cobbett, in his "History of the 
Reformation," states that in the Middle Ages the word 
"pauper" was unknown, owing to the munificence of 
the people who regarded the poor as the children of 
Christ and supplied all their wants. 

Charles E. Lester writes: "The English work- 
houses are reckoned among the charities. There is 
nothing so painful, I find, to a man of spirit and sensi- 
bility, as the thought of being one day compelled to 
enter a workhouse. It is a dark cloud that hangs on 
the vision of every poor man in England when he looks 
into the future. These workhouses are often the 
scenes of great cruelty, privation, and suffering." 
(Glory and Shame of England, Vol. I, p. 152.) 

Dr. Southey says: "When the poor are incapable 
of contributing any longer to their own support, they 
are removed to what is called the workhouse. I can 
not express to you the feeling of hopelessness and 
dread with which all the decent poor look on to this 
wretched termination of a life of labor. To this place 
all vagrants are sent for punishment; unmarried wo- 
men with child go there to be delivered; the poor or- 
phans and baseborn children are brought up here till 



238 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

they are of the age to be apprenticed off ; the other in- 
mates are those unhappy people who are utterly help- 
less — parish idiots, madmen, the blind and palsied and 
the old, who are fairly worn out." (Ibid., p. 154.) "To 
this society of wretchedness the laboring poor of Eng- 
land look as their last resting-place on this side of the 
grave, and rather than enter abodes so miserable they 
endure the severest privations as long as it is possible 
to exist." (Ibid., p. 155.) The author continues, "thai 
the factories of England are daily scenes of hecatombs 
of youthful victims, sacrificed not only without re- 
morse, but with stoical indifference, to which it is diffi- 
cult for human nature, in its most depraved state, to 
attain. In February last the London Morning Post con- 
tained the following paragraph: 'Why should not the 
laborer be protected? Horses are not worked sixteen 
hours a day; yet sixteen hours of toil in an atmosphere 
such as horses are never doomed to inhale are the por- 
tion daily of whole masses of laborers." (Condition 
and Fate of England, Vol. II, p. 11.) 

Mr. Lester in his two very valuable works, "Glory 
and Shame of England" and "Condition and Fate of 
England," informs us that the laboring classes in Eng- 
land are treated with the greatest cruelty, being com- 
pelled to labor sixteen and in some cases eighteen 
hours a day in the coal-mines, and get a miserable pit- 
tance, scarcely sufficient to buy bread. They are 
wholly ignorant of all life's luxuries and comforts. 
They are not provided with the simplest wants; they 
live in wretched garrets and cellars, and their educa- 
tion is entirely neglected. He informs us that in these 
mines he saw many little children, boys and girls alike, 
between six and twelve years, employed to enter places 



Lecture XII. 239 

too small to admit men. These little children, writes 
Lester, were almost naked, and when overcome with 
languor or fatigue were constantly stimulated to renew 
their exertions by the application of a rawhide, in the 
hands of a stout overseer. Remember, that the labor 
of these children for sixteen and eighteen hours a day 
was paid with a few pence, just enough to furnish 
them with sufficient food of the roughest kind. 

The statements of Lester are confirmed by Southey, 
J. M. Neale, and Charles Dickens. Now, this is the 
condition of the poor in one of the grandest countries 
on the globe; a country which pretends to stand fore- 
most in the march of civilization. I could give many 
other citations to show the amount of poverty, igno- 
rance, and crime, and the lack of charity among every 
nation where the spirit of infidelity has been devel- 
oped, but these are sufficient to refute the assertion 
that "there is more charity in the world to-day than 
ever before." I can prove from the best authorities 
that there is less charity to-day than there has been in 
the world for more than one thousand years. 

Mr. Ingersoll continues: "Woman is glorified to- 
day as she never was before in the history of the world ; 
there are more happy families now than ever before; 
more children treated as though they were tender blos- 
soms, than as though they were brutes, than in any 
other time or nation." 

The influence of woman, the happiness of families, 
the affection between husband and wife, parent and 
children, depend upon the sanctity of marriage. 
Where marriage is regarded as a mere natural con- 
tract between man and woman, to be dissolved by mu- 
tual agreement, woman can not wield the influence 



240 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

and children are not loved and parents are not obeyed 
as in a society where matrimony is esteemed a sacra- 
ment, holy and indissoluble, as it is in the Christian 
Church. Only in a union of that nature does the 
flame of love gladden every heart and light up every 
face with the smile of joy; only in a union of that na- 
ture does the angel of love preside over the festive 
board and spread the sunshine of bliss upon the hearth- 
stone of the family. Christianity teaches that mar- 
riage is a great sacrament. The Savior of the world 
proclaimed this doctrine among the hills of Judea, 
"What therefore God joined together let no man 
put asunder;" and He said to them, "Whosoever shall 
put away his wife and marry another, committeth adul- 
tery against her." (Mark x, 9.) "But to them that are 
married, not I, but the Lord commandeth. that the wife 
depart not from her husband; and if she depart, that 
she remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her hus- 
band. And let not the husband put away his wife. A 
woman is bound by the law so long as her husband 
liveth." (1 Cor. vii, 10.) 

After the fall of the Roman Empire the barbarian 
hordes from the shores of the Baltic swept down upon 
the fertile plains of the South, and destroyed every 
monument of pagan and Christian civilization. These 
nomad, warlike tribes and nations esteemed physical 
force as the noblest possession, and the weaker sex 
was compelled to pay homage to the stronger. For 
more than a thousand years Christianity fought for the 
rights of womanhood, and ceased not her struggles till 
the civilized descendants of savage ancestors recog- 
nized that the wife is the equal of her husband. For 



Lecture XII. 241 

more than a thousand years Christianity presented to 
the world the picture of the Virgin mother, and the 
Magnificat resounded through the dim cathedral aisle 
like the melodies of angels, till the regenerated pagan 
felt the force of its sweet music, and he, too, lent his 
voice to swell the choir which sang the praises of her 
who prophesied that "from henceforth all generations 
shall call me blessed." 

Christianity taught that the Savior of humanity was 
born of a woman ; that a woman was the morning star 
that proclaimed the rise of the Eternal Sun; that a 
woman's faith and purity had been honored with Di- 
vine maternity; that a virgin had conceived and 
brought forth a Son whose name was Emmanuel. 
Christianity placed the tender female on a pedestal of 
glory, and forced the world to bend the knee to her as 
the queen of the home and family, the sanctuary of 
love and mercy, the angel whose wand was to change 
the valley of sorrow into the vale of Tempe, and 
through whose gentle virtues savage nations were to 
be mollified, and rude manners were to be refined, and 
profligacy was to be redeemed, and the sweet perfume 
of purity and sanctity were to fill the world with joy 
and gladness. If woman is honored to-day, it is be- 
cause the most highly-cultured nations have been 
rocked in the cradle of Christian faith and have learned 
the first lessons of infancy from the Babe of Bethlehem, 
who loved, honored, and obeyed a human mother. 
What was woman among the most enlightened nations 
of antiquity? In Greece and Rome the prostitute was 
an idol and the wife was a slave. What is she to-day 
among those people who have never hearkened to the 



242 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

sweet music of the gospel? Buchanan observes that 
"wherever Christianity does not prevail there is a ten- 
dency to the degradation of woman." 

Mighty kings have discarded their wives and en- 
tered into unholy alliances with rival beauties ; but the 
Church has ever come to the defense of the legitimate 
spouse, and compelled the crowned head to honor her 
with all the respect due to her station, and to ac- 
knowledge her conjugal rights. 

"Philip Augustus," writes Hallam, "having repudi- 
ated" his lawful wife, "Isemberga of Denmark, had 
contracted another marriage," but the voice of the 
Church echoed through the land "till Philip, thus sub- 
dued, took back his lawful wife." (Europe During 
the Middle Ages, p. 288.) "Lothaire, king of Lor- 
raine, and grandson of Louis the Debonair, had re- 
pudiated his wife upon unjust pretexts, but with the 
approbation of a National Council, and had subse- 
quently married his concubine." The king was sup- 
ported by the Archbishops of Treves and Cologne, 
"and in a short time we find the king and his prelates" 
submitting to the voice of the Church. (Ibid., Eccle- 
siastical Power, p. 275.) The case of Henry VIII is 
too well known to suffer a repetition. Would this 
country depose the Chief Executive for marital infi- 
delity? Divorce is recognized by the law of the United 
States, and about forty thousand couples take advan- 
tage of this privilege every year. 

Dr. Nathan Allen, in his pamphlet, "The New Eng- 
land Family," page 124, states that in 1878 (just a few 
years after Mr. Ingersoll began to deliver lectures on 
religion and to destroy the fidelity of wives and moth- 
ers), in Vermont, there was one divorce to every 



Lecture XII. 243 

thirteen marriages; in Rhode Island and New Hamp- 
shire, one to every ten; in Maine, that it was even 
worse. Acording to this authority, there are in New- 
England, the most advanced portion of our country, 
about one divorce to every twelve marriages. In a 
family where parents are legally separated, with the 
privilege of contracting other unions, there can be no 
nuptial affection, and consequently no connubial bliss. 
There can be no purity, or, at least, the chastity of both 
is jeopardized, for both are authorized to break their 
conjugal vows, which they have made when they gave 
their plighted faith to live in love and harmony until 
the bond should be severed by the angel of death. The 
children are cast out upon the cold world without the 
assistance of parental tutelage and without the sweet 
inspiration that comes from parental affection, and 
their respect and love for father and mother soon wane. 
Hence, we can conclude that, in New England, out of 
every twelve families there is one where reverence for 
woman is ignored, where husbands and wives are un- 
faithful, where mother and father are delinquent, 
where children are abandoned, where sorrow, strife, 
and discord fall like the shadows of hell across the por- 
tals of the home. 

The New York Churchman, September 8, 1894, 
contained condensed views of the report on divorce 
of the House of Convocation of York, in England, of 
which I will give but a single extract: "We have al- 
ready seen how divorce is marching onward with ever- 
increasing rapidity, bearing in its train those natural 
consequences, — the disintegration of family life, laxity 
of ideas as to the marriage bond, perjury, lying, collu- 
sions, and increasing temptations to unfaithful con- 



244 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

duct. This surely means the steady lowering of the 
moral tone of the nation, and a drifting toward the de- 
praved state of American morals in the matter of mar- 
riage. If England is to go forward on the path she 
has already commenced to tread, what will be her con- 
dition one hundred or even fifty years hence?" 

And what is the source of all these terrible evils? 
The seed of infidelity and atheism, which has been 
planted in Christian lands by men of Mr. Ingersoll's 
type. They have taught faithful souls that there is no 
God, no eternity, no revelation, no responsibility to a 
Supreme Being; and, acting on these ideas, husbands 
have torn themselves from the embrace of loving 
wives and sought lascivious pleasures in the arms of 
strumpets; wives have impressed the lips of other 
men with the kiss of passion; mothers have eschewed 
the cares of maternity by extinguishing the life of the 
unconscious babe; virgins have worshiped at the 
shrine of lust, and hidden their shame in the crime of 
infanticide; disappointed damsels have leaped wildly 
into the vortex of pleasure until the maiden blush of 
modesty paled in the tinsel light of the bagnio. 
Wrecked homes, and blasted hearts, and blighted lives, 
and early graves, are the legitimate scions of free 
thought and atheism. Beneath the gaudy colors of 
fashion how much misery lurks, how many evils are 
ensconced, how many tears are hidden, how many 
sighs are suppressed, how many crimes are bedizened 
in the habiliments of virtue and honesty! The age of 
female glory is buried. There are more degraded 
women and false men, more unhappy homes, more 
neglected children, to-day, in Christian countries than 
there has been for a thousand years. 



Lecture XII. 245 

The infidels of France manifested their true charac- 
ter, their disrespect for womanhood and the sanctity 
of marriage, when they demolished the altar of Hymen 
and knelt and adored a nude prostitute in the Cathe- 
dral of Notre Dame, where, for past generations, the 
footsteps of the bridal train had echoed, and ardent 
young lovers had knelt to cement their fidelity and 
affection with the blessing of the Church. In de- 
scribing the ceremonies that graced the institution of 
the New Religion, Carlyle writes: "This, O National 
Convention! wonder of the universe, is our New Di- 
vinity; Goddess of Reason, worthy and alone worthy 
of revering. Goddess Candeille received the kiss of 
fraternity." Having been borne from Notre Dame 
to the Church of St. Eustache, where she was adored 
amidst the revelry and ribaldry of the mob, she was 
again carried in royal equipage to St. Gervais. 
"Other mysteries, seemingly of a Cabiric, or even Pa- 
phian, character, we leave under the veil — which ap- 
propriately stretches itself along the pillars of the aisle 
— not to be lifted aside by the hand of history." 
(French Revolution, pp. 547-8.) 

And this is the class of men to whom woman is 
indebted for her exaltation, and who have blessed the 
home with the smile of joy! 

"Now, in the old times of which I have spoken, 
they said, 'We can make all men think alike.' All 
the mechanical ingenuity of this earth can not make 
two clocks run alike, and how are you going to make 
millions and millions of people, of different quantities 
and qualitites and amount of brain, clad in this living 
robe of passionate flesh, think alike?" 

It does not require any mechanical ingenuity to 



246 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

make all the clocks in the world run on the same 
principle, and as long as they run on the same princi- 
ple they are practically running alike. It does not 
require any effort to convince every man in the world 
that two and two make four. Every physicist in the 
world recognizes the force of cohesion and repulsion; 
every physicist in the world accepts the theory that 
heat is diffused by conduction, convection, and radia- 
tion; every physicist knows that light will penetrate a 
transparent body, and that it is obstructed by an opaque 
body. Every mathematician knows that two parallel 
lines will never meet, that the angles of a triangle are 
equal to two right angles, and that the area of a 
parallelogram is equal to the base multiplied by the 
altitude. These are truths which all the learning of 
ages can not alter, and the man who would contradict 
them would be placed in the category with simpletons. 
We hold that the existence of an Essential Being is just 
as palpable as the truths of natural philosophy and 
mathematics. Every effect must have a cause, and no 
being can be his own creator. These are truisms. 

No man, having any regard for his reputation as a 
scholar, would hesitate in the acceptation of these 
statements. As the world could not create itself, we 
are forced to admit an Infinite Cause. This reasoning 
is clothed with mathematical accuracy; hence all the 
men of sound mind on the earth must acknowledge 
the existence of a Supreme Being. The human mind 
universally adopts this opinion, not from any external 
restraint, but by a metaphysical force, and it is not 
necessary to torture man into this belief. 

"Our fathers concluded they would do this by force; 
and I used to read in books how they persecuted man- 



Lecture XII. 247 

kind." Then Mr. Ingersoll tells us that he has seen 
some of the instruments used in torturing heretics for 
denying that the whale swallowed Jonas, for denying 
the efficacy of baptism, the Trinity, and other doctrines 
of Christianity. 

In intensely religious ages heresy has ever been 
associated with civil disloyalty, and the heretic has 
usually confirmed the suspicions of the orthodox gov- 
ernment by overt acts of treason and anarchy. In self- 
defense, precautionary measures were adopted to pre- 
vent the contagion from infecting the community or 
the State, and what has been regarded as penal codes 
prohibiting religious liberty, were frequently political 
enactments to preserve the commonwealth from the 
destructive storms of revolution and carnage. Laws 
against crimes that aim at the dignity and majesty 
of the government, or the life and property of the sub- 
ject, have been framed in the legislative halls of every 
nation, and they will be necessary as long as human 
passion shall reign in the human heart. 

But are Christians the only people who have called 
the rack into requisition? We only know of one case 
of infidel ascendency, which was short-lived; for the 
brutalities of its reign shocked the sensibilities of the 
most callous and the most depraved, and made its tri- 
umph the most memorable epoch in the history of 
modern times. 

What demon would be so dark as to attempt a 
justification of the atrocities of the Reign of Terror? — 
a reign instituted by atheists who were educated in the 
school of Voltaire and his confederates. Catiline and 
his accomplices in crime were angels compared to the 
disciples that were tutored by the "Sage of Ferney." 



248 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

The Church, which had sent her missionaries across 
the Alps to summon the rude Goth to a higher life 
and a nobler destiny, was driven from the land she 
had civilized; her altars were desecrated and her tem- 
ples were profaned. Lord Macaulay says that those 
priests who were faithful to their principles "were 
butchered by scores, without a trial; drowned, shot, 
or hung on lamp-posts. Thousands fled from their 
country, to take sanctuary under the shade of hostile 
altars. The churches were closed; the bells were 
silent ; the shrines were plundered ; the silver crucifixes 
were melted down. Buffoons, dressed in copes and 
surplices, came dancing the Carmagnole even to the 
bar of the Convention. The bust of Marat was sub- 
stituted for statues of the martyrs of Christianity. A 
prostitute, seated on a chair of state in the chancel 
of Notre Dame, received the adoration of thousands, 
who exclaimed that at length, for the first time, those 
ancient Gothic arches resounded with the accents of 
truth. The new unbelief was as intolerant as the old 
superstition. To show reverence for religion was to 
incur the suspicion of disaffection. It was not with- 
out imminent danger that the priest baptized the in- 
fant, joined the hands of lovers, or listened to the con- 
fesions of the dying." (Criticism of Von Ranke's 
Popes, Essays, Vol. II, p. 497.) 

This testimony is confirmed by the authority of 
White. "The same voices which proclaimed the 
slaughter of the inhabitants of a country town, abol- 
ished the worship and Divine existence of God. They 
raised in his place an idol to be adored — a woman 
of the lowest class, representative of a Grecian image, 
before whom prostrations were made and flambeaux 



Lecture XII. 249 

kept burning, to symbolize the Light of Reason. Mur- 
ders all this time were practiced in the secondary 
towns and cities with as much vigor as in the Capital. 
A man called Carrier is boldly eminent among the 
commissioners of the Committee. He presided at 
Nantes. He seemed to have a morbid preference for 
the most revolting crimes ; he ordered as many women 
as men to be shot in cold blood. Five hundred chil- 
dred of both sexes, the oldest being only fourteen 
years of age, were taken forth for execution. The 
shortness of their stature saved many from the range 
of the musket balls. They broke their bonds and ran 
for safety even among the battalions of the execu- 
tioners; they crept between their legs and embraced 
their knees, and looked imploringly and terrified into 
their faces. Nothing moved those executioners' hearts; 
they slew them as they lay at their feet. But shooting 
was tedious; boats were filled with women and taken 
out into the middle of the Loire; the plugs were 
withdrawn from the bottom and the hapless cargo 
left to drown, in sight of both shores." (History of 
France, pp. 445-6.) 

I will supplement these extracts with a short quota- 
tion from Sir Archibald Alison: "The execution of 
the king and royal family, the massacre of the Giron- 
dists, the slaughter in the prisons are generally ad- 
mitted to have been outrageous violations of the prin- 
ciples of humanity. With the exception of Levas- 
seur de la Sarthe, the most sturdy and envenomed 
of the Republican writers, there is no author with 
whom we are acquainted who now openly defends 
these atrocities." (Miscellaneous Essays, p. 245.) 
These authorities are hostile to the Church that was 



250 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

persecuted during the Reign of Terror, and yet they 
are a unit in their unqualified condemnation of the 
fiendish cruelties exercised upon inoffensive people by 
the atheistic government. Not since the days that 
Herod ordered the execution of the innocents, and 
the blood of babes filled the land with the wails 
and lamentations of grief-stricken mothers, has hu- 
man life been sacrificed more unscrupulously. Dan- 
ton, Mirabeau, Marat, and Robespierre have not 
been surpassed in truculence by Nero, Claudius, 
Caligula, and Diocletian. 

And what had this Church done for France? She 
had arrested the savage march of her fierce sons when 
they moved down like an avalanche from the frozen 
shores of the North, to devastate the rich pastures of 
Gaul. The wild Gothic tribes wandered over the 
woodland, pitched their tents on the banks of the 
Seine and the Loire; the Church gathered them into 
her pale, taught them the art of civilized life; taught 
them the comforts of home and society, the advan- 
tages of government, the refinement of learning; gave 
them laws, and built those beautiful cities which be- 
came famous in the history of science and progress. 
It was this Church that laid the foundation of those 
magnificent seats of lore, those nurseries where genius 
grew and flourished, till France took her place among 
the proudest nations on the globe. The universi- 
ties of Paris and Lyons, Toulouse and Montpellier, 
Orleans and Grenoble, Angers and Rheims, Valence 
and Bruges, Dijon and Anjou, will ever proclaim the 
glorious works of Christianity, and the monuments 
that stand sentry above the ashes of those classic halls 
of learning will speak of the triumph of religion to the 



Lecture XII. 251 

tourist from distant lands, who will come in the unborn 
future to visit the tombs of Gallic genius. 

And this Church was persecuted, and the blood of 
her children was shed on the altar of Nemesis, because 
they would not blaspheme the Holy One of Israel and 
adore the Goddess of Reason! Mr. Ingersoll should 
blush to mention the massacre of the Canaanites, when 
the most polished nation of Europe, maddened with 
atheistic intolerance and fanaticism, one hundred 
years ago, terrified the inhabitants of every land by 
the promiscuous butchery of inoffensive men, shriek- 
ing women, and helpless, innocent babes. 



LECTUREjXIII. 

MR. INGERSOLL claims that he could write a 
better book than the Bible, and that the Vedas 
are superior to the works of Moses. Chateaubriand, 
who was one of the ablest authors of modern times, 
says that the grandeur of the Bible has been the mar- 
vel of all ages, and that it surpasses in simplicity, 
originality, and sublimity the noblest productions of 
the human mind. "How extraordinary that work, 
which begins with Genesis and ends with the Apoca- 
lypse; which opens in the most perspicuous style and 
concludes in the most figurative language! May we 
not justly assert that in the books of Moses all is 
grand and simple, like the creation of the world, 
and that innocence of primitive mortals which he de- 
scribes; and that all is terrible and supernatural in the 
last of the prophets, like that corrupt society and that 
consummation of ages which he has represented? 

"The productions most foreign to our manners, the 
sacred books of infidel nations, the Zendavesta of the 
Parsees, the Vedas of the Brahmans, the Koran of 
the Turks, the Edda of the Scandinavians, the max- 
ims of Confucius, the Sanskrit poems, excite in us 
no surprise. We find in all these works the ordi- 
nary chain of human ideas; they have all some re- 
semblance to each other, both in tone and idea. The 
Bible alone is like none of them; it is a monument de- 
tached from all the others. Explain it to a Tartar, 
to a Kaffir, to an American savage; put it into the 
hands of a bonze or a dervish, — they will all be equally 

252 



Lecture XIII. 253 

astonished by it; a fact which borders on the miracu- 
lous. Twenty authors, living at periods very distant 
from one another, composed the sacred books; and, 
though they are written in twenty different styles, 
yet these styles, equally inimitable, are not to be met 
with in any other performance. The New Testament, 
so different in its spirit from the Old, nevertheless par- 
takes with the latter of this astonishing originality. 

"But this is not the only extraordinary thing which 
men unanimously discover in the Scriptures. Those 
who do not believe in the authenticity of the Bible 
nevertheless believe, in spite of themselves, that there 
is something more than common in this same Bible. 
Deists and atheists, great and little, all attracted by 
some hidden magnet, are incessantly referring to that 
work, which is admired by the one and reviled by the 
other. There is not a situation in life for which we 
many not find in the Bible a text apparently dictated 
with an express reference to it. It would be a diffi- 
cult task to persuade us that all possible contin- 
gencies, both prosperous and adverse, had been fore- 
seen, with all their consequences, in a book penned 
by the hands of men." (Genius of Christianity, p. 
344.) The author then descants on the beauties of the 
Bible, and finally compares that book with the writings 
of Homer, the grandest mind that ever adorned the 
temple of Grecian thought, and he shows that the au- 
thors of the Scripture are superior to the bard of 
Ionia. But Chateaubriand wrote before the days of 
Ingersoll, and, of course, did not foresee that the 
genius of all the ages would pale in the mental efful- 
gence of America's renowned agnostic, who could 
write a much better book than the Bible. 



254 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

Mr. Ing-ersoll believes in happy homes, and loving 
parents, and faithful wives and husbands, and we rec- 
ommend him to read the Bible, where all these beau- 
tiful doctrines are taught. St. Paul teaches that "So 
ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. 
He that loveth his wife loveth himself." (Eph. v, 28.) 
"Husbands, love your wives as Christ also loved the 
Church, and delivered himself up for it." (Eph. v, 28.) 
Likewise parents are commanded to love their chil- 
dren and provide for them, and children must honor 
and obey their parents. 

He says let us "compare George Eliot with Queen 
Victoria. The queen is clothed in garments given to 
her by blind fortune and unreasoning chance, while 
George Eliot wears robes of glory woven in the looms 
of her own genius." 

In this comparison the agnostic shows what little 
respect he has for purity, maternity, and noble wo- 
manhood. We know that George Eliot is a brilliant 
mind; but does that cover her illicit liaison with 
Lewes? Is not a pure mother, who has reared twelve 
children and adorned her home with all the virtues 
of wife and parent, a more worthy example for imi- 
tation than the literary concubine? After all, it seems 
that Mr. Ingersoll does not value female honor very 
highly. 

"Now, my crime has been this: I have denied that 
God ever told his generals to kill innocent babes and 
tear and rip open women with the sword of war; I 
have denied that God ever upheld polygamy and 
slavery." 

I presume if the atheists of this age should ever 
get possession of the State that Mr. Ingersoll would be 



Lecture XIII. 255 

compelled to take the lecture platform against them; 
for during their short-lived reign in France, we see that 
they perpetrated crimes one hundred fold more hei- 
nous than any that the Colonel can quote from the 
Bible. When one has the right to exercise an act, 
that act can not be a crime. It is not murder for the 
State to exact the life of the cold-blooded homicide. 
God's rights are supreme, and he is circumscribed by 
no laws save those that originate in his essence, and 
are eternal. The slaughters mentioned in the Old 
Testament were not murders, and the toleration of 
polygamy was not a crime. But the assassinations, 
debaucheries, and despotisms of the republican athe- 
ists in France were crimes of the darkest stripe. 

A well-known writer speaks of the enormities of 
the Revolutionists : "Shall I enter into detail of those 
calamities, which are so memorable? — rebellion, an- 
archy, and the most sanguinary despotism, alternately 
subjecting us to all the horrors — the most magnifi- 
cent, the most useful institutions, which were the 
works of ages, overthrown in a single day; tombs 
rent asunder and the ashes scattered to the winds; our 
country laid waste by her own offspring, as she had 
been by the soldiers of Alaric or Attila; a hideous 
corruption of public morality, giving birth to execrable 
and monstrous debauchery; parricides and crimes 
almost unprecedented becoming of frequent and daily 
occurrence; public and legalized assassination con- 
stituting the chief employment and almost the only 
concern of the heads of the State ; integrity and honor, 
every virtue and every talent, as well as birth and 
fortune, considered sufficient grounds for proscrip- 
tion; the whole extent of France converted into an 



256 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

immense scaffold, upon which blood never ceased to 
flow; new means of extermination speedily invented, 
and all the elements summoned to the aid of the mur- 
derers and executioners, whose number had been in- 
sufficient for so much slaughter." 

Then he continues to describe some of the doc- 
trines of the atheists: "So great did the disorder of 
their intellects become that, after having deified their 
reason, they became the most violent detractors of 
reason, even to the extent of denying its existence 
and of maintaining that man differs from the brute in 
his organs alone, and that thought is nothing more 
than the degradation of instinct. They reprobated 
science, the cultivation of the intellect and social life, 
as abuses; they extolled the savage state, and they 
taught that man's true destiny was to live in the for- 
ests, without laws, without reflection, above all, with- 
out modesty, with no care but that of seeking a prey, 
and of gratifying those appetites which he shares in 
common with the brute creation." 

And this is the condition to which Mr. Ingersoll 
is seeking to reduce this grand and glorious nation ! 

The Colonel says that "all orthodox religion of the 
day is Calvinism." 

I deny the verity of that statement, and I defy the 
Colonel to prove it. He says that he believes in evo- 
lution, and he thinks that it is a grand doctrine. In 
his "Mistakes of Moses" he says that God brought 
all the animals to Adam for the purpose of giving 
the father of our race an opportunity of selecting a 
companion. "Adam did not see anything that he 
could fancy, and I am glad he did not; if he had, 



Lecture XIII. 257 

there would not have been a free-thinker in this world ; 
we should have all been orthodox." 

It seems from the scientific theories advanced in 
this age that the free-thinkers are the only class of 
men who claim consanguinity with the beast, the only 
class who honor the monkey as their grandpa. And 
Mr. Ingersoll confesses that he would gladly fraternize 
with the "skulless vertebrates in the dim Laurentian 
seas." 

"If we had done as the priest told us, we would 
have all been idiots." 

We have already referred to that bright galaxy 
of scholars, found in the history of Christianity, but we 
did not specify that many of them were priests. I do 
not wish to bore my hearers with repetitions, as Mr. 
Ingersoll does, and I shall mention a few more new 
names from the page of science, for the express pur- 
pose of showing what little knowledge the Colonel has 
on all questions of this nature. The first maps of On- 
tario and Superior were formed by Jesuit priests, 
and the first map of Erie was drawn by Father Dollier 
de Casson, a member of the Sulpician Order. The 
first map of China was drawn by Jesuits. We are in- 
debted to Catholic priests for the first information of 
the interior of the Celestial Empire and our geo- 
graphical knowledge of Thibet and the Dark Conti- 
nent. 

Cardinal Nicholas de Cusa was the first astrono- 
mer that pointed out the defects of the Ptolemaic sys- 
tem, and his labors were followed up by Copernicus, 
a Polish priest, who formulated the system which is 
accepted by the scientific world to-day. Copernicus 



258 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

was assisted and encouraged in his labors by Cardinal 
Schomberg and Bishop Tiedman Giese. Father Chris- 
topher Clavius defended the work of Copernicus in 
Germany, and another priest, Diego Zuniga, upheld it 
in Spain, and Father Foscarina proclaimed it in Italy. 
Galileo was defended by cardinals and other dignita- 
ries of the Church, and he made many of his observa- 
tions in the Quirinal Gardens. Lying historians have 
fabricated many calumnies about the persecution of 
this renowned astronomer; but I wish to state that, at 
first, before Galileo's theory was perfectly understood, 
it was commonly believed that he was attacking a 
Scriptural fact; but when he gave a satisfactory ex- 
planation of his views to the Vatican, he was not only 
encouraged in his investigation, but feted as one of 
the ablest scientists of his day. Piazzi discovered 
Ceres. Orioli was the "first to determine the orbit of 
Uranus;" and Picard was the first president of the 
French Academy of Science. De Vico discovered 
eight comets. We are indebted to Paecioli di Borgo 
for the first work on algebra that was published in 
Europe. Father Schyrle de Rhieta was the first to 
employ a convex lens in the telescope, and he like- 
wise invented the double telescope. "Nollet, famous 
for his experiments in static electricity; Casselli, the 
inventor of the wonderful panteligraph ; Cavalieri, the 
inventor of infinitesimal calculus, — were all ecclesias*- 
tics of the Roman Catholic Church. Gregory de San 
Vicente solved the quadrature and many other prob- 
lems. Fathers Mersenne, Laloubere, Boscovich, Maco, 
Riccati, Moigno Lesueur, Jacquier, Inniger, Sadler, 
Maurer, Denza, Reisch, Mouger, Desforges, Panceni, 
Zantedeschi, Corbonelle, Lalande, were all eminent sci- 



Lecture XIII. 259 

entists. Catholic ecclesiastics have been employed on 
important scientific embassies to the most remote parts 
of the globe by the civilized governments of this and 
preceding ages. Nearly all the progress in art, 
science, and literature, and mechanics during the first 
fifteen hundred years of the Christian era was made 
by Catholic priests. "Rome, Florence, Venice, Milan, 
Parma, Avignon, Lyons, Lisbon, Marseilles, Vienna, 
Wurzburg, Manheim, Gratz, Prague, Breslau, Posen, 
and other places in Europe, owed to the illustrious or- 
ders" of the Church "their first observatories." "In 
all parts of the world" Catholic "ecclesiastics now have 
charge of observatories, — at Rome, Louvain, Puebla, 
Havana, Kalocsa, Calcutta, Zikawei in China, George- 
town, and Washington, D. C, and numerous other 
places; and the value of their work, performed quietly 
and unostentatiously, is known and appreciated only 
by those who are capable of judging of the merits of 
accurate study and delicate observations." (Zahn, 
Catholic Science and Scientists.) 

I have mentioned only a few of the illustrious priests 
who have advanced the interests of science by their 
discoveries and inventions. I could name hundreds of 
others, but these that I have designated are known 
to the erudite world for their profound learning and 
advanced ideas; and every student of history will ac- 
knowledge that they stand above the most of those 
who have been reared in the nursery of atheism. Let 
not my separated brethren imagine that I am boast- 
ing of our conquests in the field of lore, for I would 
not refer to any particular denomination of Chris- 
tianity if Mr. Ingersoll had not specified the priest- 
hood as an agency in the obstruction of the wheel of 



260 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

progress. I admit that Protestants of every creed 
have done their part in the promotion of learning. Let 
no one think that it is my purpose to defend the tenets 
of Rome exclusively. I am speaking in behalf of the 
Bible and Christianity, and I want every person in 
this audience to understand that I have his interest at 
heart. I would fain see a united Christendom; I 
would fain see the mighty Christian hosts marching 
under one banner, instead of being divided into hostile 
camps. 

I would glady see the spirit of love permeating and 
actuating every form of Christianity. I would gladly 
see armies of Christian missionaries following the foot- 
steps of benighted peoples through the somber wilds 
of their native land. I would gladly hear every 
tongue singing the praises of Jehovah, and behold 
every knee bending at the sound of his voice. 

Mr. Ingersoll claims that he is opposed to the 
Bible because that book upheld polygamy and de- 
graded woman. 

We have already refuted that statement. The Bible 
merely tolerated polygamy on account of the customs 
of the times, and we observe that, as the Jewish nation 
advanced in civilization, morality, and refinement, 
this ancient usage was eliminated, and before the time 
of Christ polygamy was entirely abolished among the 
Hebrew people. You see, then, that it was merely a 
temporary permission granted to avoid the greater 
evils of adultery and infidelity. 

I will give a few quotations from the pen of 
Grace Aguilar, who has treated this question thor- 
oughly in her admirable work, "The Women of Is- 
rael/' The authoress states that the mother was hon- 



Lecture XIII. 261 

ored in Israel as in no other country, for God him- 
self gave the commandment, "Honor thy father and 
thy mother," placing both parents on a plane of 
equality, which Mr. Ingersoll denies when he holds 
that the wife had no rights. After commenting on 
the various injunctions framed for the protection of 
women, Grace Aguilar writes: "How could these sol- 
emn and often reiterated commands be obeyed, if 
the son of Israel beheld in his mother merely the igno- 
rant bond-slave of his father? How could he honor 
her? Were the laws obeyed, there could be no neg- 
lectful or sinning mother; not even suspicion could 
attack her. The law guarded her even from her own 
relations, if they falsely wronged her, compelled her, 
even under the fear of death." (Vol. I, p. 153.) 

"The mother, the wife, the daughter, the maid- 
servant, the widow, the fatherless, — for each and all, 
His love and mercy so provided that every social and 
domestic duty became obedience unto Him, and wo- 
man was raised to that rank in the scale of intellectual 
and immortal beings, by the ordinance of God, from 
which her weakness of frame and gentle delicacy of 
mind would, had she depended on man's judgment 
alone, have entirely deprived her." (Vol. I, p. 134.) 

"To the Mosaic religion, then, and to no other, 
does not only Israel, but every other nation by whom 
the Bible is acknowledged Divine, owe the elevation, 
the dignity and holiness of woman as a mother, a posi- 
tion marked out by God himself, and proclaimed and 
held sacred, not only by the awful threat of pun- 
ishment, but by the solemn promise of a Divine re- 
ward. How sacred, then, to every son and daughter 
of Israel must be their duty to their parents! Dis- 



262 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

obedience, neglect, scorn, are no longer capital of- 
fenses," because infidelity and atheism have succeeded 
Judaism. "Polygamy was permitted in Israel, at the 
period of the delivery of the law, simply because the 
Eternal's mercy would not interfere with an immemo- 
rial usage, which his wisdom knew, from local cus- 
toms and long-indulged habits, would demand vio- 
lence to be relinquished. The laws which he insti- 
tuted in no way interfered with those habits of his 
people which custom had endeared, his prescience 
leaving to time that improvement and greater refine- 
ment of the human race which demands ages to 
accomplish, but which would at length fling aside of 
itself every fetter that had once linked it to the customs 
of less enlightened nations. But, though permitted 
by the Mosaic law, polygamy was so restricted that 
the protection, happiness, and well-doing of both 
wives were provided for; no partiality could permit 
injustice; the man that did an injustice was punish- 
able by law. Tf a man have two wives, the one be- 
loved and the other hated, and they have borne him 
children, both the beloved and the hated, and if the 
first-born son be hers that is hated, then it shall be, 
when he maketh his sons to inherit all that he hath, 
that he may not make the son of the beloved 
first-born before the son of the hated, but he 
shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the 
first-born, by giving him a double portion of 
all that he hath.' But, although allowed to exist, 
without being considered a crime at the period of the 
redemption from Egypt, for the reasons above stated, 
the laws of Moses relating to conjugal duties provided 
for one wife alone, thus proving the superior and holier 



Lecture XIII. 263 

purity of such unions in the sight of God, and thus 
forcibly marking the distinction between those cus- 
toms which were to last forever, through every age, 
race, and clime, and those which were merely nation- 
alized from previous habit and association." (Vol. I, 
pp. 159-160.) 

" 'When a man has taken a wife, he shall not go out 
to war; neither shall he be charged with any business, 
but shall be free at home for one year.' Why was this 
year of release granted him? For his own enjoy- 
ment? — his own pleasure? No! but to cheer up — or, 
in other words, to make happy — the wife which he has 
taken. Man might find happiness apart from his wife, 
even in the first year of his marriage. The exciting 
call of war, or the grosser or more engrossing claims 
of business, might easily obtain such dominion as to 
render him less careful of his home, less anxious for 
the happiness of his wife, than were he free. Woman 
has no such claims to share her heart with her hus- 
band." (Vol. I, p. 162.) 

Where are Mr. Ingersoll's ideas that the law only 
provides for the felicity of man? The law of love and 
mercy towards the widows and daughters of Israel is 
remarkable. "Ye shall not afflict any widow or 
fatherless child. If thou afflict them in any wise, and 
they cry out unto me, I will surely hear their cry, and 
my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the 
sword; and your wives shall be widows and your chil- 
dren fatherless." (Exodus xxii.) "Can any language 
more emphatically and forcibly denote the tender 
mercy of the Eternal? His love made their sorrows 
his own. As a positive sin against himself, he 
threatened to afflict all those who dared afflict them 



264 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

by the infliction of similar sufferings. He knew 
that, left to man's mercy, the widow and the 
fatherless would often meet with oppression, 
fraud, and injustice; be defrauded of their nat- 
ural rights and be afflicted with hard creditors. 
'Leave thy fatherless children to me,' he said, by his 
prophet Jeremiah, at a time when misery, desola- 
tion, and destruction were falling on Judea and her 
sons for their awful iniquity: ' Leave them to me 
and I will keep them alive, and let thy widows trust in 
me.' " (Women of Israel, Vol. I, p. 174.) 

In the third chapter of the second volume, Grace 
Aguilar has proved that the women of Israel held 
the most responsible positions, and were often im- 
plored to obtain favors of the monarch when it was 
known that men would be ignored. The wise woman 
of Tekoah was suborned by Joab to intercede for 
Absalom. Grace Aguilar comments on this: "Now, 
it is not at all likely that these wise counsels were the 
impulse of the moment. The women of Israel must 
have had a voice in the Senate of their several cities. 
Their positions must have been alike elevated and in- 
tellectual. In a State like Israel, composed, as it was, of 
so many unruly members and constantly seditious 
spirits, wisdom could have no more obtained ascend- 
ency without cultivation then than it can now. Had 
there been any law condemning woman to any par- 
ticular sphere, prohibiting her interference with any 
religious or secular matters, wisdom and judgment 
would not only have been publicly useless in a wo- 
man, but privately uncultivated, and we should find 
no such instance as the two we have recorded." (Vol. 
II, pp. 42-43-) 



Lecture XIII. 265 

''One of the first miracles performed by Elisha 
was for a woman, evincing the tender kindness of his 
disposition, and proving that woman was not consid- 
ered unworthy to receive relief through him, from the 
hand of her gracious God." (Vol. II, p. 49.) "When 
the ordinances of the law were utterly disregarded, 
and Josiah, the mighty king, sent the priests and 
other superior officers 'to inquire of the Lord for me, 
and for all Judah concerning the words of the book,' 
to whom did these high officers go? — to a mighty 
man of wisdom? to a holy man of God, whose sanc- 
tity and influence gave him courage to threaten and 
to warn, to risk personal danger from the anger of 
the populace, whom his denunciations might enrage? 
No! It was to a woman that they came — a woman, 
and a wife in Israel." (Vol. II, p. 71.) 

Speaking of the preservation of Israel through the 
gentle character of Esther, the authoress writes: "That 
the Bible gives both sympathy and encouragement 
even to the most constitutionally weak, is proved by 
the sweet, gentle, feminine character of Esther. 
Strength of herself she had none; but it was asked 
and granted." "During the persecution under An- 
tiochus Epiphanes, the sufferings of the women of 
Israel must have been as fearful as their constancy 
and fidelity were powerful, proofs of the perfect adap- 
tation of the law of the Eternal to their temporal and 
spiritual wants. Never could a religion which made 
them soulless slaves have become so dear, so part 
of their very hearts, that it was easier to endure tor- 
ture and slavery and death rather than depart from 
it themselves or refuse its privileges to their infant 
sons. Eighty thousand persons — men, women, and 



266 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

children — slain in the forcible entrance of Antiochus 
within Jerusalem, and forty thousand of both sexes 
sold into slavery, was the horrible preface to the misery 
which followed. Every observance of the law, from 
the keeping of the Sabbath and the covenant of Abra- 
ham to the minutest form, was made a capital offense. 
Yet, in spite of the scenes of horror so continually re- 
curring, the very relation of which must now make 
every female heart shrink and quiver — yet were these 
female martyrs baring their breasts to the murderous 
knife rather than bow down to the idol or touch forbid- 
den food. Women — young, weak, tender — performed 
with their own hands the covenant of Abraham upon 
their sons, because none else would dare the tyrant's 
wrath ; and with their infants (for whose immortal souls 
they had thus incurred the rage of men) suspended 
round their necks, received death by being flung from 
the battlements of the temple into the deep vale below ; 
others were hung; and cruelties too awful to relate 
practiced upon others. • Yet no woman's spirit failed; 
and what must have been their attachment to their holy 
religion, what their sense of its responsibility and its 
immortal reward, what their horror of abandoning 
it themselves and cutting off their sons from its sainted 
privileges, to incur martyrdom like this! The re- 
ligion degrading and brutalizing woman never yet 
had martyrs. The Catholic, the Protestant, have had 
their martyrs in young and feeble women equally with 
ourselves; because their religion, founded upon ours, 
shares its heavenly privileges and spiritual love, and 
twines itself so round a woman's clinging breast that 
it is far easier to die for it than live without it, by apos- 
tasy and falsehood. Where in the vast tomes of his- 



Lecture XIII. 267 

tory, sacred or profance, shall we find a deed more 
heroic, a fortitude more sublime, than is recorded of 
Hannah, the Hebrew mother, during the persecution 
of Antiochus?" (Vol. II, p. 155, etc.) 

Mr. Ingersoll, speaking of the persecutions waged 
by Christians against unbelievers to make men recant 
their heresies, says that he would have recanted under 
similar circumstances. "Now, just stop that/' he 
would have said; "I will admit anything on earth that 
you want; I will admit that there is one God, or a 
million; one hell, or a billion." 

The blatant skeptic of the nineteenth century, with 
all his boasting about the splendor of the age, intel- 
lectual development, the spirit of liberty, moral char- 
acter, must go to that nation which, he holds, degraded 
woman, to learn lessons of moral sublimity, heroism, 
fortitude, truth, candor, independence, honesty, and 
purity. 

"Great emergencies will often create great char- 
acters; but in the narration which we have been con- 
sidering (2 Maccabees vi,) we read something more 
in the character of the Hebrew mother than even the 
heroism which she displayed. By her close connec- 
tion with her sons, in being brought before the tyrant 
and condemned to share their fate, it is clear that, 
though a woman in Israel, her influence must have 
been supposed of some consequence. That her sons 
owed their all to her, even to their education, and that 
her influence on them was very great, we read alike 
in her own words and in the appeal of the king to 
her to save, by her exhortations, her youngest born. 
There is no mention of a father; she had probably 
been, from the infancy of her children, that especially 



268 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

beloved of the Eternal, a widow in Israel; and in 
the calm courage, the noble words of each of her sons, 
we learn the education she had given. They had prob- 
ably been amongst the valiant, though unsuccessful, 
defenders of their land; amongst the faithful few who, 
in the very face of the persecution, dared to obey the 
law of Moses, and refused every effort to turn them 
from their God. Would this patriotism, this de- 
votedness, have come at the moment needed had it not 
been taught, infused from earliest boyhood — by exam- 
ple as well as precept? A mother in Israel could be 
herself no warrior, but she could raise up warriors — 
she could be no priest, but she could create priests." 
(Vol. II, p. 161.) 

"In glancing back over the period, which has de- 
tained us much longer than we anticipated, from £he 
return from Babylon to the war, we can not find a 
single evidence of the veracity or foundation of the 
charge of Jewish female degradation, nor, in fact, the 
workings of a single statute contradictory to the beau- 
tiful spirit of the law of Moses; all we have read, e\ery 
female character brought forward, marks the superior 
social elevation and the individual intellect of the He- 
brew females to the women of any of the surrounding 
nations. Nay, we see them occupying positions as 
wives and sisters of kings, higher and far more influ- 
ential than they ever did, or do, in any Gentile land; 
instead of being sunk into mere nonentities, as, were 
they refused all spiritual privileges and temporal 
freedom, they must have been, we behold their influ- 
ence, either for good or bad, as great and far-spread- 
ing as female influence ever was in any other — either 
ancient or modern — land. We can not discern a trace 



Lecture XIII. 269 

of that social or domestic abasement which, had any, 
either Divine or human, statute existed, must have 
been visible at a time when human nature was sunk 
to the lowest ebb. Not in such a period could woman 
have taken her natural position, if any law had once 
existed to her abasement; but she simply retained that 
which she had always possessed, and this at the advent 
of Christianity. Nor can we discern the faintest evi- 
dence of polygamy at this period. If we glance back 
to the return from Babylon, we must remark that every 
king and priest and prince is recorded as possess- 
ing but one wife. Simon, John Hyrcanus, Aristobu- 
lus I, Alexander Jannaeus — both his sons, Aristobulus 
and Hyrcanus — Alexander, the father of Mariamne, 
her two sons, and the other descendants of Herod, the 
wives of all whom are mentioned, confirm both the 
legality and the custom of but one wife." (Vol. II, 
p. 269.) 

And this is the religion which, Mr. Ingersoll states, 
"sanctioned and upheld polygamy/' and deprived wo- 
man of all her privileges, and degraded her, and made 
her the slave of her husband. Certainly the agnostic 
has not understood the Bible, and I advise him to 
read Grace Aguilar's works on "The Women of Is- 
rael," which I have quoted so copiously, for the pur- 
pose of throwing light on the mind of the blind infidel. 
The Old and New Testaments have taught the lessons 
of female dignity. Had it not been for Judaism and 
Christianity, the world would never have known the 
meaning of wife and mother. 

"Honor bright, I tell you that all the sweet and 
beautiful things in the Bible would not make one play 
of Shakespeare; all the philosophy in the Bible would 



270 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

not make on\e scene in 'Hamlet;' all the beauties in 
the Bible would not make one scene in 'Midsummer 
Night's Dream;' all the beautiful things about woman 
in the Bible would not begin to create such a charac- 
ter as Perdita, or Imogene, or Miranda." 

And who was Shakespeare? A Christian drama- 
tist. And where did he collect many of his sweetest 
characters? From the history of Christianity. "The 
laming of the Shrew," "The Merchant of Venice," 
"All's Well That Ends Well," "Much Ado About 
Nothing," "Measure for Measure," "Midsummer 
Night's Dream," are all taken from mediaeval history, 
when Christianity was dominant throughout every civ- 
ilized nation in Europe. "Hamlet," "Troilus and 
Cressida," "Romeo and Juliet," "Othello," "King 
John," "Richard" II and III, "Henry" IV, V, VI, and 
VIII, are likewise taken from Christian times and 
deal with Christian characters. Some of the noblest 
characters in history are the women of the Bible. 
Abigail the Shunammite, Huldah, Judith, Esther, 
Mariamne, Rizpah, and the martyr mother of the val- 
iant Maccabees, are worthy of the bard's grandest 
touches. 

Grace Aguilar, extolling the devotion of this noble 
woman, writes: "The devotion of Rizpah is an- 
other exquisitely beautiful trait of female character. 
Its mention does not contain a lesson, but a pic- 
ture. It does not tell us what woman should be, but 
what she is, and is valuable in proving that the 
women of the Bible are but portraits of woman's na- 
ture now. The stern mandate of the Lord against 
the bloody house of Saul had not all been fulfilled; 
and justice, — that inscrutable justice, which man dare 



Lecture XIII. 271 

not hope to explain, — demanded the execution of the 
last remaining scion of the family of Saul. Day and 
night, from the beginning of the barley harvest till the 
rain came down from heaven, a period of many weeks, 
did Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, keep solitary watch 
beside the moldering bodies of the last remnants of 
the house of Saul. 'She took sackcloth and spread it 
for her upon the rock, and suffered neither the birds 
of the air to rest upon them by day, nor the beasts of 
the field by night/ What a volume of woman's heart 
is told in that brief verse ! Scorched by the sun of day, 
and chilled by the dews of night, yet moved she not 
from the strong rock, nor cared she aught besides 
mourning, yet not repining; guarding the hallowed 
dead, yet breathing not her anguish save through the 
tears that fell on the impenetrable rock, the sighs that 
mingled with the breeze. Who might feel for her, 
sole remnant of the bloody house? None; and the 
mourner asked naught of man. Her world was by 
the dead, and there the mocking sun and the pitying 
moon gazed down upon her in her sad and solitary 
watch; and O, is not this woman? Is not this love, 
the devotedness, which are the natural dwellers of 
woman's heart, when naught but nature speaks?" 
(Vol. II, p. 44-) 

Let Mr. Ingersoll present a nobler picture than 
this; and remember that this is a real character, not the 
picture of the poet's fancy or the dream of the novel- 
ist; and remember, too, that she is but one of the 
many illustrious women that adorn the fame of Israel. 
Some of the grandest poems have been inspired by 
Scriptural characters. What work has ever excelled 
"Paradise Lost?" What floods ol diction and gems 



272 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

of thought roll on like tidal waves throughout the 
volume ! And yet Milton gleaned his principal ideas 
from the story of the rebellion of the angels and the 
subsequent fall of man. The beautiful self-sacrificing 
character of Esther inspired the loftiest ideas of Ra- 
cine. What could be nobler than the queen's willing- 
ness to jeopardize her own life, with the barest pros- 
pect of saving her race from destruction? Well has 
the poet represented the reply of the Jewish heroine to 
her cousin Mordecai: 

" Go, and let all the Jews that dwell at Shushan, 
In earnest supplication night and day, 
Unite with thee to lend me all the help 
That prayer affords, and keep a three days' fast 
Severe. Already has dark night descended ; 
To-morrow, when the sun shall bring back day, 
Content to meet my death, if die I must, 
I will go forth, and for my country offer 
Myself. Let all retire." 

Is there anything more sublime in the English 
language than the Scriptural poems of Willis? 

I think if Mr. Ingersoll would read and study more 
and talk less he would not make himself so ridiculous 
in the minds of thoughtful people. 

Then the Colonel reiterates the trite assertion, so 
often refuted, that God established and upheld slavery. 
I have already answered this statement ; but as the ag- 
nostic never grows tired of repeating the same old 
objections in every lecture, I will not lose patience, 
but will answer them with new arguments. 

George B. Cheever, commenting on the law of 
love, the law against oppression and injustice, etc., 
established by God in the Ancient Testament, writes: 
"I might rest the whole argument here; but I pass to 



Lecture XIII. 273 

a second demonstration of the sinfulness of slavery 
in the various laws enacted against oppression, which 
are, indeed, necessary conclusions from the law of love. 
If slavery is not oppression, nothing under heaven 
can be. When God says, 'Cursed be he that oppress- 
ed! his neighbor,' in whatever respect, that curse 
comes, in every possible shape, upon the man who 
claims property in man. When God says, 'Thou shalt 
not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, the widow, 
the servant, the hireling;' and when he teaches 
us to pray, 'Deliver me from the oppression of man; 
so will I keep thy precepts;' every one of these stat- 
utes and instructions demonstrates the system of sla- 
very to be sinful. There was never, at any time, in the 
Jewish statutes, or authorized by them, any such 
thing as slavery in the Hebrew nation; never any 
claim of property in man." (God Against Slavery, 
pp. 96-97.) 

"Man-stealing and man-selling are almost the sole 
origin of slavery; and in the Old and New Testa- 
ments these things are condemned as sins worthy of 
death, — stealing, keeping, trading, all forbidden 
under pain of death." (Ibid., pp. 110-111.) 

We read in the Book of Deuteronomy that '"Thou 
shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which 
has escaped from his master unto thee. He shall dwell 
with thee, even among you, in that place which he 
shall choose in any of thy gates where it liketh him 
best; thou shalt not oppress him." (Deut. xxiii, 15.) 

Cheever, commenting on this text, writes : "He is 
a free man, as any of you; free to choose his residence, 
free to go and come as he pleases; free to stay unmo- 
lested in whatever place he may prefer, and there is 



274 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

no owner to him, no creature that hath power to inter- 
fere with his liberty, no law binding him as any man's 
property; but an explicit Divine law, recognizing, 
guarding, and establishing, beyond possibility of denial 
or interference, his sole right of property and owner- 
ship in himself." (God Against Slavery, p. 142.) 

Charles Elliott says that "slavery is prohibited to 
the Hebrews in those declarations which forbid them 
to allow of any such bondage in Canaan as existed in 
Egypt. 'For they are my servants which I brought 
forth out of the land of Egypt; they shall not be sold 
as bondsmen.'" (Levit. xxv, 42, etc.; Deut. xv, 15; 
Exod. xxi, 16; Deut. xxiv, 7; Gen. vi, 11 ; Exod. iii, 9, 
and xii, 29, and xiv, 28; Job xxvii, 13; Isaiah liii, 6; 
Ezekiel xviii, 10, and xxii, 29; Amos iv, 1, and viii, 4; 
Zacharias vii, 9.) These texts condemn every kind of 
oppression ; and, as Elliott proves, they are applied in a 
particular manner to slavery, which is the greatest of 
all oppressions; and they evidently militate against the 
practice of bondage among the chosen people. "Ac- 
cording to slave laws, the slaves have no rights, be- 
cause they are property." But, as we have seen, the 
slaves among the Hebrews had all the rights of free- 
men. They had the right of the covenant, the right to 
the Sabbath, the seventh year, the year of the jubilee, 
the right of the passover, and all annual festivities. 
"They received remuneration and good treatment. 
They were instructed in religion. They had a right 
to hold property and have servants of their own. They 
were governed by equal laws. They might be heirs 
to their masters. They exercised the highest offices. 
If their masters abused them to the extent of mayhem 
they were set free. They might leave their master's 



Lecture XIII. 275 

house for ill usage. Their contract for service ended 
at the year of release, or at the jubilee. They mar- 
ried into their masters' families. The children and 
heirs of masters seem to have had no greater privi- 
leges than the servants. The legal exercise of these 
rights would destroy slavery, and surely God would 
not establish an institution in a code of laws which 
he- would destroy by antagonistic laws, in the same 
code." (Bible and Slavery, p. 177.) 

If Mr. Ingersoll will study the Bible carefully, to- 
gether with the two admirable works I have been 
quoting, he will discover that slavery, in the strict 
sense of the term, never existed in Israel, but by that 
name we must understand merely a temporary service ; 
and in many respects the servants mentioned in the 
Bible had more rights and privileges than servants in 
the civilized portion of the world to-day. Nearly 
every word in the Jewish constitution was antagonistic 
to a system of slavery as it has existed in other coun- 
tries, both ancient and modern. 

Mr. Ingersoll says: "Here is the story of Jeph- 
thah. He went off, and he asked the Lord to let him 
whip some people, and he told the Lord if he would 
let him whip them, he would sacrifice to the Lord 
the first thing that he met on his return; and the 
first thing that he met was his own beautiful daugh- 
ter; and he sacrificed her. What do you think of a man 
that would sacrifice his own daughter? What do you 
think of a God that would receive that sacrifice?" 

There is no Scriptural proof for Mr. Ingersoll's as- 
sertions. Many hold the opinion that Jephthah vowed 
to consecrate to God whatever he should meet first, 
according to the nature of the thing; so as to immo- 



276 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

late it as a holocaust, if it were such as might be 
offered by the law, or to devote it otherwise to God 
if it were something that the law forbade the Israel- 
ites to offer as a bloody sacrifice. Therefore, they 
think that Jephthah did not slay his daughter, but 
consecrated her to perpetual virginity, which in those 
days was a great sacrifice, since every woman was 
anxious to be a mother, that from her children might 
arise the Savior of the world. The Testament does 
not speak of a bloody sacrifice, but on the contrary the 
girl is represented as bewailing her virginity, and the 
inspired writer says that she did not know man. 

This is the story of Jephthah, according to the 
Bible: "And when Jephthah returned into Maspha, 
to his house, his only daughter met him with tim- 
brels and with dances, for he had no other children, 
and when he saw her he rent his garments and said: 
Alas! my daughter, thou hast deceived me and thou 
thyself art deceived, for I have opened my mouth to 
the Lord and I can do no other thing. And she an- 
swered him: My father, if thou hast opened thy 
mouth to the Lord, do unto me whatsoever thou hast 
promised, since the victory hath been granted to thee, 
and revenge of thy enemies. And she said to her 
father: Grant me only that which I desire: let me go 
that I may go about the mountain for two months 
and may bewail my virginity with my companions. 
And he answered her, Go. And he sent her away for 
two months. And when she was gone with her com- 
rades and companions, she mourned her virginity in 
the mountains. And the two months being expired, 
she returned to her father, and he did to her as he 
had vowed, and she knew no man." (Judges xi.) 



Lecture XIII. 277 

Here there is no reference whatever to the death 
of the girl, but every word confirms the opinion that 
the sacrifice consisted in the consecration of her vir- 
ginity to the Lord. Is it possible that the sacred pen- 
men would have neglected to record such an event, 
had it occurred? Is it possible that the maiden, in her 
grief, would have refrained from the faintest allu- 
sion to her death? Is it possible that the father, 
whose heart would have been lacerated with agonies, 
would have remained silent on this subject? 

There is only one case where a human sacrifice was 
authorized by the Lord, and that was commanded 
merely with the intention of testing the fidelity of 
Abraham ; and yet the sacred records of Israel are filled 
with the story of Isaac. He is represented in the New 
Testament as the figure of Christ; and the obedience 
of the father to the will of heaven, and the prevention 
of the deed, and the substitution of a victim by the 
hand of God, have been repeated by priest and prophet 
and sung by Jewish poets and Christian bards for 
thousands of years. Would the immolation of Jeph- 
thah's daughter, the only child of her father, be ac- 
complished without creating consternation in the 
house of Israel? Would it not have been rehearsed 
around the firesides by the mothers of Judah? Would 
it not have been woven into verse, and sung by the 
children of Israel throughout all generations? 

Granting, for the sake of argument, that God did 
accept the life of Jephthali's daughter, there is nothing 
in the story to create aversion; for we must believe 
that the girl, acquiescing to the will of heaven, won 
a crown of immortal glory; and since death is neces- 
sary to all men, is not a voluntary death, that ended 



278 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

all her sorrows and secured for her a glorious in- 
heritance, an example worthy of admiration? 

"Let us see what the Gospel says about woman: 
'Let the women all learn in silence, with all subjec- 
tion; suffer not woman to think nor usurp authority 
over man, for Adam was formed first, not Eve/ ' ; 

St. Paul informs Timothy that women are to re- 
main silent in church, that they are not authorized to 
preach the gospel. Women and men occupy differ- 
ent spheres of action. Man has been created for the 
more arduous duties in life. He is stronger in body 
and mind, and he rules by courage and strength. 
He is to be the warrior, the legislator, the sheriff, the 
governor; his nature and capacity qualify him to fill 
these positions. Woman rules by her charms, grace, 
gentleness, and affection. She is the queen of the 
home and the hearth, and wherever her gentle influ- 
ence is felt, morals are pure, society is refined, and 
the world is better. Take woman from her sphere, 
make her a politician, lawyer, legislator, and let her 
abandon the sweet attractions of home life and 
mingle with the society of men, and you destroy her 
influence and make her the greatest agent of evil that 
has ever afflicted nations. 

Madame de Stael was one of the loftiest minds that 
ever lived, and the ablest politician in France; and yet 
every pure-minded woman abominates her character, 
and no man of refined sentiment would stain his repu- 
tation by defending the dark side of her life. 

It was the purpose of St. Paul to create pure, 
noble, grand women, who would adorn their homes 
with the fragrance of virtue, and aggrandize society 
with sons like Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln. 



Lecture XIII. 279 

Mr. Ingersoll is a stanch admirer of "Woman's 
Rights," which produces such characters as Madame 
de Pompadour, Maintenon, and Montespan. 

"I said that the Bible upheld tyranny. Let me 
read you a little: 'Let every soul be subject to the 
higher powers; the powers that be are ordained by 
God.' George III was king by the grace of God, and 
when our fathers rose in rebellion, according to this 
doctrine, they rose against the power of God." 

This sentence refers to legitimate authority, not to 
the power of a despot. The Bible informs us that God 
is a merciful, just, kind, and loving Father, and as 
such can not sanction injustice and tyranny; and 
when the apostle speaks of the Divine authority of 
rulers, he means that governments established on prin- 
ciples of justice and intended for the promotion of 
the common weal and the advancement of human hap- 
piness, are sanctioned and ordained by the voice of 
God. 

The Almighty Ruler of nations showed his hatred 
for despotism when he broke the chains of Israel and 
led the sons of Abraham into the desert, where they 
were governed by just and equitable laws. The Brit- 
ish Ministry ignored the rights of the Colonists, and, 
according to the Bible, they were justified in unfolding 
the flag of rebellion, and in founding a government 
for their own interests. Christ says: "The spirit of 
the Lord is upon me, because he hath appointed me to 
preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to 
bind up the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to 
the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set 
at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the accept- 
able year of the Lord." (Luke iv, 18.) This sentence 



280 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

contains an absolute condemnation of slavery and 
tyranny. 

Mr. Ingersoll alludes to the doctrine of St. Paul 
on obedience, and he denounces that doctrine as in- 
famous. The apostle of the Gentiles says : "Servants, 
obey in all things your masters according to the flesh." 
There is no intimation of slavery in this sentence ; but 
merely that obedience which an employee owes to his 
employer. It is supposed that the domestic has sold 
his services for a price, and in virtue of a stipulation 
he must submit to the wishes of the other contracting 
party, in so far as that party has a right to demand 
the labor of the servant. The same apostle writes: 
"Ye are bought with a price; be not ye servants of 
men." Let Mr. Ingersoll explain this passage and 
compare it with the foregoing. The Epistle of Paul 
to Philemon does not sanction, but reprobates slavery. 
"Whom I have sent back to thee, and do thou receive 
him as my own bowels; whom I would have retained 
with me, that in thy stead he might have ministered 
to me in the bands of the gospel. But without thy 
counsel I would do nothing; that thy good deed might 
not be as it were of necessity, but voluntary. For per- 
haps he therefore departed for a season from thee, 
that thou mightest receive him again forever; not now 
as a servant, but instead of a servant, a most dear 
brother, especially to me. If, therefore, thou count 
me a partner, receive him as myself." 

Elliott, in his "Bible and Slavery," writes: "But 
Paul is especially peremptory against freemen becom- 
ing slaves; and his argument is the strongest in the 
world, even the argument of redemption." The equal- 
ity of the human race, or the common nature of man, 



Lecture XIII. 281 

is taught by Paul in his instructions to slaves and mas- 
ters. In regard to slaves, he says that "there is no 
respect of persons." Speaking of Onesimus, Elliott 
writes: "Philemon was to receive him in the follow- 
ing manner: Not now as a servant, but above a 
servant, a brother beloved, especially to me, but how 
much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the 
Lord. If thou count me therefore a partner, receive 
him as myself. I wrote unto thee, knowing that thou 
wilt also do more than I say. Although Philemon 
could receive him as his legal slave, yet he was be- 
sought by Paul to receive him not now as a slave, but 
above a slave. Formerly, when neither of them were 
Christians, Philemon might receive him as a slave, 
but he could not do that now, as both were Chris- 
tians." (Bible and Slavery, p. 328.) 

After commenting on ancient statutes against 
slavery, Cheever writes that St. Paul, being acquainted 
with these statutes, and knowing that Philemon, being 
a Christian, would act in conformity with God's de- 
crees, sent back Onesimus, feeling certain that his 
master would receive him as a brother and not as a 
bondman. "This is the thing (the law of Deuteron- 
omy) that accounts, in the first place, for his sending 
back Onesimus to Philemon at all; which he would 
not have done, and could not conscientiously have 
done, with the statute of Deuteronomy staring him in 
the face, had he not known that he was sending him 
back to a Christian, perfectly aware of that statute 
and acquainted with God's whole reprobation of the 
crime of oppression, and the iniquity of claiming 
property in man. And hence he says to Philemon: 
'Whom I would have retained;' would have done it, 



282 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

and could have done it, conscientiously, by the law 
of God; but, perfectly confident in Philemon's Chris- 
tianity, he would not impose that detention on him, 
and compel him by the law, but would give him the 
sweet privilege of yielding up the man, on gospel 
grounds and willingly." (God Against Slavery, p. 

H3-) 

"Furthermore, all Christians had the history of 
God's providence before them in reference to freedom 
and slavery. They found slavery condemned in the 
case of Joseph, and in the bondage of the Hebrews in 
Egypt, as well as by the principles of right and wrong 
in the Old Testament. They found freedom approved 
and maintained in the families of Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob, under whose administration it gradually dis- 
appeared, so that on the descent to Egypt, it ceased 
to exist. In the Mosaic code the laws on bond- 
service rooted out the elements of slavery from among 
the Hebrews, and inherent, too, and depraved human 
nature, and established freedom." (Charles Elliott: 
The Bible and Slavery, p. 354.) 

From all that I have said, it is palpable to the most 
obtuse mind that the spirit of the Bible is intensely 
antagonistic to human thralldom. All the other ob- 
jections contained in his lecture on Skulls have been 
answered in my replies to the so-called "Mistakes of 
Moses." I will conclude with the hope that my audi- 
ence will carefully and assiduously peruse the eminent 
works that I have quoted this evening, and I know 
that a change of opinion will take place in the minds of 
those who have been misled by the unauthenticated 
assertions of Mr. Ingersoll. 



LECTURE XIV. 

MR. INGERSOLL says that any man living in 
India a few hundred or a few thousand years 
ago would have said that the religion of the Brahma 
was the true religion, because the disciples of Brahma 
had the best civilization. The Greek and Egyptian 
would have used the same argument; and "we say 
ours is the only true religion, because we are the 
greatest commercial nation in the world." 

No man of common sense ever taught that com- 
merce or national progress is the legitimate scion of a 
divinely-established faith. Religion consists primarily 
in the development of man's spiritual powers, the cul- 
tivation of fraternal charity, a sense of right and wrong, 
refinement of manners, the elevation of his views, the 
ennobling of his aspirations, and the advancement of 
individual and social happiness. Devotion to philo- 
sophical studies, the cultivation of the fine arts, love of 
music, and those accomplishments of a refined people, 
are the dominant characteristics of a religious age, and 
these are likewise the distinctive marks of an ad- 
vanced stage of civilization. To achieve these re- 
sults, fleets and armies, railroads and canals, are not 
essential. The old Romans were not in possession of 
the science of electricity, and were totally ignorant of 
the sundry inventions that have added so immeasurably 
to the convenience of modern life; and yet they were 
far in advance of us in profound erudition, and were 
our superiors in every social accomplishment. You 
can form an idea of a man's mental caliber and ambi- 

283 



284 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

tion by his conversation. Langhorne says that when 
the ancients met at a levee they spent their time in 
discussing philosophy, history, poetry, and jurispru- 
dence; whereas we moderns usually while away the 
moments in idle conversation about horse-racing, 
pugilism,* and other nugatory questions. National 
preponderance and commercial magnitude are not 
indications of a true civilization; for empire and navies 
are rather the conquests of brute force than the pro- 
duct of genius. Genghis Khan established the great- 
est unbroken empire that ever existed; and Tamer- 
lane, no less brilliant in his exploits, swept from the 
center of Tartary to the borders of Egypt, and the 
shores of the Indus to the mighty snowdrifts of 
Siberia. These conquerors were able sovereigns, who 
clothed the name of Mogul with grandeur and terror. 
And yet how little they promoted human happiness, 
how little they exalted the standard of virtue, and how 
little they elevated the aspirations of the soul and the 
dignity of human nature! The symphonies of Verdi 
have aggrandized the world more than the battles of 
all the warriors, the conquests of all the armies, and 
the achievements of all the navies that ever swept land 
and billow. 

Mr. Ingersoll asks the query: "Can you have a 
thought that is not suggested to you by what you call 
matter?" 

This query has already been answered in my lec- 
ture on the immortality of the soul, where I showed 
that the mind, being incarcerated in the flesh, de- 
pends on the five senses for its acquisition of ideas; 
but I also proved that the soul can, and does, act en- 
tirely independently of matter; and this is the strongest 
argument in proof of its spiritual nature. 



Lecture XIV. 285 

He continues: "Matter and the universe are the 
same yesterday, to-day, and forever. There is just as 
much matter in the universe to-day as there ever was." 

Mr. Ingersoll offers no evidence of the necessity 
and eternity of matter, and we are at liberty to meet 
his assertion with a simple negation. 

The agnostic claims that in ancient times men 
endeavored to appease the wrath of God "by be- 
lieving things without evidence, by believing things 
against evidence, by disbelieving and denying demon- 
strations, by despising facts, by hating reason, by dis- 
couraging investigation, by making an idiot of your- 
self." This is precisely what Mr. Ingersoll is doing 
to-day. 

The Colonel says: "Metaphysics is where two 
fools get together, and each one admits that neither 
can prove, and both say, 'Hence we infer.' v 

Agnosticism is where three wiseacres get together 
and one says, I doubt; and the second says, We doubt; 
and the third says, Everything is doubtful. It is 
strange that infidels have such hatred for all knowl- 
edge, save that which they possess. Tom Paine con- 
demned the Church for giving so much time to the 
study of the classics and classic thought ; and he main- 
tained that one language was sufficient for the most 
of men, and Ingersoll decries the science of meta- 
physics, — the science of the mind, the grandest of all 
sciences, — because he is ignorant of that science. 

"All the books that ever were written were, in my 
judgment, written by men." 

Mr. Ingersoll says that there are so many stories 
that are false, in his judgment. The Bible was not 
inspired, in his judgment; there are no spirits, in his 



286 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

judgment; there is no heaven and no hell, in his 
judgment; there is no eternity, in his judgment; there 
is no God, in his judgment; he is the infallible arbiter 
of all questions, in his judgment, and any man who 
differs with him is a fool, in his judgment. Now, in 
my judgment, all his views about a revealed religion 
are erronous, and there arises a question between 
his judgment and my judgment; and until that ques- 
tion is decided, his judgment will not be accepted as 
final. 

The subject of witchcraft is a question treated 
both in sacred and profane history, and its verity or 
falsity can not be affected by Mr. Ingersoll's ideas. 
He can not prove the fallacy of the Bible, and there- 
fore he has not demonstrated, and can not demon- 
strate that sorcery is a chimera, and he has no right 
to denounce a doctrine which he can not disprove. 

Mr. Ingersoll says that at Vail, in 1470, a rooster 
was convicted of sorcery and burned at the stake; also, 
a hog and six pigs were tried on the same charge. 
Now, Mr. Ingersoll, be candid: did you not cull that 
story from Victor Hugo's "Notre Dame?" 

"Nothing happens by accident. In the wide uni- 
verse everything is necessarily produced." 

If this be true, how do you account for the eternity 
of matter? According to "your" idea, it was "neces- 
sarily produced," and consequently it must have been 
produced by some cause, and this cause, according to 
your idea, must have been engendered by some other 
cause. Do you not see that you must admit a Self- 
Existenj: Eternal Cause, or seek refuge in an infinite 
series, which is an absurdity? You have offered us 
one of the strongest arguments for the existence of 
God and the necessity of miraculous creation. 



Lecture XIV. 287 

Ingersoll says that "Cosmos, in the sixth century, 
taught that the stars were impelled by angels." Vol- 
taire, in the eighteenth century, taught that fossils 
were mere sports of nature; he held the opinion that 
marine shells were produced in fresh-water lakes, and 
having been informed that petrified fish were found in 
the mountains of Germany and Switzerland, he at 
once replied that some travelers had dropped some 
fish in those places, and in the course of time they 
petrified. Every scientist to-day laughs at these puer- 
ile ideas of the Sage of Ferney; and when Mr. Inger- 
soll desires a butt for his caustic ridicule, why does he 
wander back through thirteen centuries and select 
what he calls an idiot of the Dark Ages, when he can 
find one of his own kith so near home? 

"In the name and by the authority of ghosts, men 
enslaved their fellow-men; they trampled upon the 
rights of women and children; they bought and sold 
each other; filled heaven with tyrants and the earth 
with slaves. In those days there was no liberty. 
Liberty was despised, and the laborer was consid- 
ered but little above the beast." 

Now, Mr. Ingersoll, you know, as I have already 
proved, that this was the condition of the pagan 
world before the dawn of Christianity; but with the 
birth of the Messiah, with the glimmer of the star that 
brought the kings of Arabia to the cradle of the 
Babe, a new era burst upon the night of darkness like 
the beams of a flaming orb, and the slave was manu- 
mitted, and the captive was redeemed, and woman 
was exalted, and the nations of the earth walked 
in the light of civilization, gladdened by the smile 
of freedom. Le J us see, in the first place, what 



288 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

Christianity has done for liberty. I shall divide this 
subject into two parts — personal and civil liberty. As 
I do not pretend to be a profound historian, I shall 
quote as authorities those who have made a study 
of these questions. 

Lecky writes: "From examining the effect of 
Christianity in promoting a sense of the sanctity of 
human life, we now pass to an adjoining field and 
examine its influence in promoting a fraternal and 
philanthropic sentiment among mankind. And, first 
of all, we may notice its effect upon slavery." The 
author then tells us that under pagan domination the 
legitimacy of slavery was fully recognized; and he 
gives in his works striking illustrations of the power 
of the master, and the unjust position of his bond- 
man, whose very life, at various times and in various 
countries, belonged entirely to his owner. In the 
beginning, of course, owing to the large number of 
slaves and their inferior social position, Christianity 
made slow progress, for it was compelled to deal with 
a custom that had been legitimized and consecrated 
by the practice of ages. It was an arduous task to 
convince the newly-converted Christian that it was 
unjust to exercise dominion over human beings, when 
he remembered that these persons had served his an- 
cestors for generations. The Church, however, did all 
in her power to alleviate the grievances of the servile 
class, and to elevate their condition by the inculca- 
tion of the doctrine that all men are equal; that all 
are created by the same God, redeemed by the same 
blood, and destined to dwell forever in loving fraternity 
in those bright cerulian fields of bliss where saints and 
angels hymn their glorious anthems. 



Lecture XIV. 289 

The Church taught the Fatherhood. of God and the 
brotherhood of man. She abolished certain modes of 
punishment, protected the life of the slave the same as 
a citizen, recognized and inculcated the sanctity of 
the matrimonial alliance, forbade the separation of the 
families of the slaves, cultivated the domestic virtues 
among bondmen, and encouraged manumission, 
"ordaining that trie ceremony should be celebrated in 
the church, and permitting it on Sundays. Under 
Justinian, however, new and very important measures 
were taken. In the first place, all the restrictions 
upon enfranchisement, which had accumulated under 
the pagan legislation, were abolished; the legislator 
proclaimed in emphatic language, and by the pro- 
visions of many laws, his desire to encourage manu- 
mission, and free scope was thus given to the action 
of the Church. In the second place, freedmen, con- 
sidered as an intermediate class between the slave and 
the citizen, were virtually abolished — all, or nearly all, 
the privileges accorded to the citizen being granted 
to the emancipated slave. This was the most im- 
portant contribution of the Christian emperors to that 
great amalgamation of nations and classes which had 
been advancing since the days of Augustus; and one 
of its effects was that any person, even of senatorial 
rank, might marry a slave when he had first emanci- 
pated her. In the third place, a slave was permitted to 
marry a free woman with the authorization of his 
master, and children born in slavery became the legal 
heirs of their emancipated father. The rape of a slave 
woman was also in this reign punished, like that of a 
free woman, by death." (Lecky, History of European 
Morals, Vol. II, p. 65.) 



290 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

Christianity "imparted a moral dignity to the 
servile classes, and it gave an unexampled impetus to 
•the movement of enfranchisement. The first of these 
services was effected by the Church ceremonies and 
the penitential discipline. In these spheres the differ- 
ence between the master and his slave was unknown. 
They received the sacred elements together; they sat 
side by side at the Agape; they mingled in the public 
prayers. In the penal system of the Church the dis- 
tinction between wrongs done to a freeman and 
wrongs done to a slave, which lay at the very root 
of the whole civil legislation, was repudiated. At a 
time when, by the civil law, a master whose slave died 
as a consequence of excessive scourging was abso- 
lutely unpunished, the Council of Illiberis excluded 
that master forever from the communion. The chas- 
tity of female slaves, for the protection of which the 
civil law made but little provision, was sedulously 
guarded by the legislation of the Church. Slave birth, 
moreover, was no disqualification for entering into the 
priesthood; and an emancipated slave, regarded as the 
dispenser of spiritual life and death, often saw the 
greatest and the most wealthy kneeling humbly at his 
feet, imploring his absolution or his benediction." 
(Ibid, p. 66.) 

Christianity elevated the condition of slavery, and 
destroyed the prejudice against the servile classes, 
which had existed for ages. The most profound 
thinkers of antiquity taught that the slave could have 
no virtues; that his nature was debased, his instincts 
low and groveling, and that his soul was incapable 
of lofty thoughts, and his heart impervious to noble 
sentiments. "For the first time, under the influence 



Lf.ctuee XIV. 291 

of Christianity, a great moral movement passed 
through the servile class. While Christianity thus 
broke down the contempt with which the master had 
regarded his slaves, and planted among the latter a 
principle of moral regeneration which expanded in no 
other sphere with an equal perfection, its action in pro- 
curing the freedom of the slave was unceasing. The 
law of Constantine, which placed the ceremony under 
the superintendence of the clergy, and the many laws 
that gave special facilities of manumission to those 
who desired to enter the monasteries or the priest- 
hood, symbolized the religious character the act had 
assumed. It was celebrated on Church festivals, es- 
pecially at Easter ; and, although it was not proclaimed 
a matter of duty or necessity, it was always regarded 
as one of the most acceptable modes of expiating past 
sins. St. Melinia was said to have emancipated eight 
thousand slaves; St. Ovidius, a rich martyr of Gaul, 
five thousand; Chroma tius, a Roman prefect under 
Diocletian, fourteen hundred; Hermes, a prefect in the 
reign of Trajan, twelve hundred and fifty. Pope St. 
Gregory, many of the clergy at Hippo, under the rule 
of St. Augustine, as well as a great number of private 
individuals, freed their slaves as an act of charity. 
It became customary to do so on occasions of national 
or personal thanksgiving, on recovering from sick- 
ness, on the birth of a child, at the hour of death, and, 
above all, in testamentary bequests. Numerous char- 
ters and epitaphs still record the gift of liberty to 
slaves throughout the Middle Ages, for the benefit of 
the soul of the donor or testator. In the thirteenth 
century, when there were no slaves to emancipate in 
France, it was usual in manv churches to release 



292 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

caged pigeons on the ecclesiastical festivals in memory 
of the ancient charity, and that prisoners might still be 
freed in the name of Christ." (Lecky, History of 
European Morals, Vol. II, pp. 69-70.) 

After these plain historical statements, how can 
Mr. Ingersoll have the audacity to say that the Church 
has taken liberty from man? But I shall corroborate 
the testimony of Lecky with other authorities. Guizot, 
in his "History of Civilization," confirms the views 
already presented, and elaborates the fact that Chris- 
tianity was untiring in its efforts to demolish the line 
of demarkation between man and man, and ever 
proclaimed the gospel of human equality and brother- 
hood, and gave the example of its doctrine by admit- 
ting slaves to all the privileges and all the positions 
of honor in the Church, thus forcibly reminding the 
nations of the earth of the iniquity and injustice of 
every form of bondage by the most sublime lessons. 
After elucidating the gradual development of the 
idea of equality, justice, and fraternity towards all men, 
through the teachings of Christianity, the author 
writes that it (the Church) "worked more, I believe, 
and that in a more efficacious manner, towards the 
amelioration of social society. There can be no doubt 
that it struggled resolutely against the great vices of 
the social state; against slavery, for instance. The 
greater part of the forms of enfranchisement, at vari- 
ous epochs, were based on religious principles; it is in 
the name of religious ideas, upon hopes of the future, 
and upon the religious equality of mankind, that en- 
franchisement has almost always been pronounced." 
(History of Civilization, pp. 130, etc.) 

The author likewise informs us that previous to 



Lecture XIV. 293 

universal emancipation, which could only be accom- 
plished with the progress of ages and the mollification 
of manners, the Church defended slaves from the in- 
justice of discriminating laws. The rights of bond- 
men were secured by legislative decrees and by the 
enactments of the Church. The Council of Orange, 
convened in 441; the Council of Elvira, in the early 
part of the fourth century; the Council of Toledo, in 
589 ; the Council of Adige, in 506 ; the Council of Or- 
leans, in the year 549; the Council of Abbon, in 517; 
the Council of Merida, held in 666; the Council of 
Worms, assembled in 868, — are among the many re- 
ligious assemblages where laws were formed and pro- 
mulgated for the protection of slaves and the abolition 
of slavery. In modern times, Pius II, in 1482; Paul 
III, in 1537; Urban VIII, in 1639; Benedict XIV, in 
1 741, and Gregory XVI, in 1839, wrote letters and 
issued fiats prohibitory of slavery and slave traffic. 

Although I have the highest respect for the noble 
service and brilliant talents of Garrison and Wendell 
Phillips, at the same time I can not close my eyes 
to plain facts and agree with Mr. Ingersoll that they 
were first to attack the system of slavery, when 
history tells me they but followed the wake of Chris- 
tian heroes who raised their voices in defense of en- 
chained humanity in every land for a thousand years 
and more. Even in this country, Phillips and Gar- 
rison were not the leaders in that movement. The 
legitimacy of thralldom had been denounced by able 
men of all denominations for at least a century before 
the birth of the Reformer and the Abolitionist men- 
tioned in Mr. Ingersoll's lecture. As early as 1735 
slavery was forbidden in Georgia, which was settled 



294 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

by Methodists, Moravians, and Presbyterians, — a peo- 
ple, as a whole, remarkable for their deep religious 
spirit. Channing, the great Unitarian minister of Bos- 
ton, — perhaps the ablest thinker in his denomination 
in America, — was a stanch advocate of emancipation 
several years before the eloquence of Phillips and the 
writings of Garrison electrified the nation. 

Allied to slavery is the question of serfdom, and 
in this field the Church also took the lead. It is 
scarcely necessary to expatiate on this subject, as I 
have fully refuted the Colonel's statement that the 
Church never began any reform. Robertson writes 
that serfdom was abolished in France by Louis and his 
brother Philip, who "issued ordinances declaring that 
as all men were by nature free-born, and as their king- 
dom was called the kingdom of the Franks, they de- 
termined that it should be so in reality as well as in 
name; therefore, they appointed that enfranchise- 
ments should be granted throughout the whole king- 
dom upon just and reasonable grounds. In Italy, 
the establishment of a republican government in their 
great cities, the genius and maxims of which were ex- 
tremely different from those of the feudal policy, to- 
gether with the ideas of equality which the progress 
of commerce had rendered familiar, gradually intro- 
duced the practice of enfranchising the ancient predial 
slaves. 

The effects of such a remarkable change in the con- 
dition of so great a part of the people could not fail of 
being considerable and extensive. The husbandman, 
master of his own industry, and secure of reaping for 
himself the fruits of his labor, became the farmer of 
the same fields where he had formerly been compelled 



Lecture XIV. 295 

to toil for the benefit of another. The odious names 
of master and slave, the most mortifying and depress- 
ing of all distinctions to human nature, were abol- 
ished. New prospects opened, and new incitements 
to ingenuity and enterprise presented themselves to 
those who were emancipated. The expectation of bet- 
tering their fortunes, as well as that of raising them- 
selves to a more honorable condition, concurred in 
calling forth their activity and genius; and a numer- 
ous class of men, who formerly had no political exist- 
ence, became useful ctitzens, and contributed towards 
augmenting the force and riches of the society which 
adopted them as members." (History of the Middle 
Ages, p. 25.) 

An able writer in the North American Review for 
July, 1845, says: "Though seemingly enslaved, the 
whole Church was in reality the life of Europe. She 
was the refuge, of the distressed, the friend of the 
slave, the helper of the injured, the only hope of learn- 
ing. To her, chivalry owed its noble aspirations; to 
her, art and agriculture looked for every improvement. 
The ruler from her learned some rude justice; the ruled 
learned faith and obedience. Let us not cling to the 
superstition which teaches that the Church has al- 
ways upheld the cause of tyrants. Through the Mid- 
dle Ages she was the only friend and advocate of the 
people and of the rights of man. To her influence 
was it owing that all through that strange era the 
slaves of Europe were better protected by the law than 
are now the free blacks of the United States by the 
national statutes." (Spalding's Miscellanies, p. 137.) 
We must next advert to the activity of the Church 
in the redemption of captives, and here I will quote 



296 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

again the authority of Lecky: "Closely connected 
with the influence of the Church in destroying heredi- 
tary slavery was its influence in redeeming captives 
from servitude. In no other form of charity was its 
beneficial character more continually and more splen- 
didly displayed. During the long and dreary trials 
of the barbarian invasions, when the whole structure 
of society was dislocated, when the vast districts and 
mighty cities were in a few months almost depopu- 
lated, and when the flower of the youth of Italy was 
mowed down by the sword or carried away into cap- 
tivity, the bishops never desisted from their efforts 
to alleviate the sufferings of the prisoners. St. Am- 
brose, disregarding the outcry of the Arians, who de- 
nounced his act as atrocious sacrilege, sold the rich 
church vestments of Milan to rescue some captives 
who had fallen into the hands of the Goths, and this 
practice — which was afterwards formally sanctioned 
by St. Gregory the Great — became speedily general. 
When the Roman army had captured, but refused to 
support, seven thousand Persian prisoners, Acacius, 
Bishop of Amida, undeterred by the bitter hostility 
of the Persians to Christianity, and declaring that God 
had no' need of plates or dishes, sold all the rich 
church vestments of his diocese, rescued the unbe- 
lieving prisoners, and sent them back unharmed to 
their king. During the horrors of the Vandal inva- 
sion, Deogratias, Bishop of Carthage, took a similar 
step to ransom the Roman prisoners. St. Augustine, 
St. Gregory the Great, St. Caesarius of Aries, St. 
Exruperius of Toulouse, St. Hilary, St. Remi, — all 
melted down or sold their church vases to free prison- 



Lecture XIV. 297 

ers. St. Cyprian sent a large sum for the same pur- 
pose to the Bishop of Nicomedia. St. Epiphanius and 
St. Avitus, in conjunction with a rich Gaulish lady 
named Syagria, are said to have rescued thousands. 
St. Eligius devoted to this object his entire fortune. 
St. Paulinus of Nola displayed a similar generosity, 
and the legends even assert that he, having exhausted 
all other forms of charity, as a last gift sold himself to 
slavery. When, long afterwards, the Mohammedan 
conquests in a measure reproduced the calamities of 
the barbarian invasions, the same unwearied charity 
was displayed. The Trinitarian monks, founded by 
John of Matha, in the twelfth century, were devoted to 
the release of Christian captives, and another society 
was founded with the same object by Peter Nolasco 
in the following century." (History of European 
Morals, Vol. II, p. 72.) 

John de Matha was assisted in his noble work by 
Felix of Valois and Innocent III. The members of 
this order spread rapidly through France, Italy, Ger- 
many, England, Saxony, and Flungary, and institu- 
tions of a similar nature were established for women. 
Raymond of Pennaforte united his efforts with Peter 
Nolasco, who founded the order Beatae Marias de 
Mercede, for the redemption of captives who had fallen 
into the power of the Saracens and Moors. It is re- 
ported that these two orders were established in virtue 
of visions which were granted to their founders. John 
de Matha and Felix of Valois had the same dream, 
and Innocent III interpreted their dreams to signify 
that they were to devote their labor to the ransom of 
prisoners. The Trinitarians wore a white habit, with 



298 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

a red-and-blue cross on the breast. Whittier, the great 
American bard, has immortalized the vision and the 
labors of the saint in a poem, a part of which I shall 
transcribe: 

" Then rose up John de Matha 

In the strength the Lord Christ gave, 
And begged through all the land of France 

The ransom of the slave. 
The gates of tower and castle 

Before him open flew, 
The drawbridge at his coming fell, 

The doorbolt backward drew. 
For all men owned his errand, 

And paid his righteous tax ; 
And the heart of every peasant 

Was in his hands as wax. 
At last outbound from Tunis, 

His bark her anchor weighed, 
Freighted with seven-score Christian souls, 

Whose ransom he had paid." 

We see from the authority of Lecky that the 
Church was ever active in ransoming the captive, re- 
gardless of his religious proclivities, and the heathen 
was as much the object of her maternal solicitude as 
Christians; for the writer tells us that she hesitated 
not to redeem the Persian prisoners from the Roman 
general, although she was aware that the disciples of 
Zoroaster hated the doctrines of Christianity and the 
followers of the Galilean. We have proved from the 
most reliable historians that Christianity was the sole 
factor in the abolition of slavery and serfdom, and 
that the Church was ever the friend of the poor, the 
oppressed, and the captive. W T e have proved that 
Christianity was the patroness of personal liberty. But 



Lecture XIV. 299 

personal liberty is the foundation of civil liberty. 
When individuals are endowed with freedom, when 
their actions are untrammeled, when the law grants 
them immunity from coercion, the spirit of independ- 
ence is encouraged and developed, tyranny is elim- 
inated, and despotism is dethroned. The institution 
that breaks the fetters of the slave, enfranchises the 
bondman, restrains the encroachments of the mas- 
ter, impedes the aggressions of the bold, — that insti- 
tution is a friend of national liberty and democracy 
and the foe of aristocracies and oligarchies. His- 
tory supports the statement that Christianity is the 
mother of national freedom. In her religious govern- 
ment, the Church has been actuated by the broadest 
principles of republicanism. As Guizot has well said, 
she is not a caste, where power is transmitted by in- 
heritance. "As regards the formation and transmis- 
sion of power in the Church, there is a word which 
is often used in speaking of the Christian clergy, and 
which I wish to discard: it is the word caste. Look 
around the world; take any country in which castes 
have been proclaimed, — in India or Egypt; you will 
find everywhere that the caste is essentially heredi- 
tary; it is the transmission of the same position and 
the same power from father to son. Wherever there 
is no inheritance, there is no caste, there is no cor- 
poration; the word caste can not be applied to the 
Christian Church. When the same functions and the 
same powers become hereditary in the same family, 
it is evident that privilege must have been attached to 
them, and that no one could have acquired them in- 
dependently of his origin. Nothing resembling this is 
met with in the Christian Church. The Church has 



300 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

continually maintained the principle of the equal ad- 
missibility of all men to her duties and ranks, what- 
ever may have been their origin. The Church re- 
cruited herself from all ranks, alike from the inferior 
as well as the superior; more often, indeed, from the 
inferior. She alone maintained the principle of equal- 
ity and competition. Two principles were in vigor in 
the Church: First, the election of the inferior by the 
superior — the choice, the nomination ; second, the elec- 
tion of the superior by the subordinates— that is, an 
election properly so-called, what we understand as 
such at the present day." (History of Civilization, 
pp. 109-111.) 

This was the Roman Catholic system, and Protest- 
ants have even a broader and a more liberal ecclesias- 
tical government; for in the reformed Churches the 
laity, as well as the clergy, have a voice in the election 
of pastors and superiors. It was the democratic prin- 
ciple of the ecclesiastical policy that gave birth to the 
spirit of freedom which manifested itself in secular 
government. Referring to the origin, growth, and 
development of the free cities of Spain, Hallam writes 
that "a more interesting method of securing the public 
defense was by the institution of chartered towns or 
communities. These were established at an earlier 
period than in France and England, and were in some 
degree of a peculiar description. Instead of pur- 
chasing their immunities, and almost their personal 
freedom, at the hands of a master, the burgesses of 
Castilian towns were invested with civil rights and 
extensive property on the more liberal condition of 
protecting their country. The earliest instance of the 
erection of a community is in 1020, when Alfonso V, 



Lecture XIV. 301 

in the Cortes of Leon, established the privilege of 
that city with a regular code of laws, by which its 
magistrate should be governed. The citizens of Car- 
rion, Llanes, and other towns, were incorporated by 
the same prince. Sancho the Great gave a similar 
constitution to Naxara. Sepulveda had its code of 
laws in 1076, from Alfonso VI; in the same reign, 
Logrono and Sahagun acquired their privileges, and 
Salamanca not long afterward. The fuero, or original 
charter of a Spanish community, was properly a com- 
pact by which the king or lord granted a town and 
adjacent district to the burgesses, with various privi- 
leges, and especially that of choosing magistrates and 
a Common Council, who were bound to conform 
themselves to the laws prescribed by the founder." 
(History of the Middle Ages, p. 200.) 

Again, the author says: "The primary and most 
essential characteristic of a limited monarchy is, that 
money can only be levied upon the people through 
the consent of their representatives. This principle was 
thoroughly established in Castile; and in the statutes 
which enforce it, the remonstrances which protest 
against its violation bear a lively analogy to corre- 
sponding circumstances in the history of our Con- 
stitution." (Ibid., p. 208.) 

According to Hallam and other historians of the 
Middle Ages, in the free cities no taxation could be 
imposed upon the people without the consent of their 
representatives assembled in Council. I leave it to 
the unbiased judgment of my audience to decide 
whether the freedom of our own America is more com- 
prehensive and more liberal than the free cities of 
Europe six hundred years ago, when Christianity 
was the dominant and ruling creed. 



302 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

Robertson confirms what has already been said: 
"The inhabitinats of cities, having obtained personal 
freedom and municipal jurisdiction, soon acquired 
civil liberty and political power. It was a funda- 
mental principle in the feudal system of policy that no 
freeman could be governed or taxed, unless by his 
own consent. In consequence of this, the vassals of 
every baron were called to his court, in which they 
established, by mutual consent, such regulations as 
they deemed most beneficial to their small society, and 
granted their superior such supplies of money as were 
proportionable to their abilities, or to his wants. 
The barons themselves, conformably to the same 
maxim, were admitted into the Supreme Assembly 
of the nation, and concurred with the sovereigns in 
enacting laws or in imposing taxes." (History of the 
Middle Ages, p. 22.) It is useless to gainsay the fact 
that the progress of liberty was in consonance with 
the spirit of Christianity; for the bishop and the noble- 
man and the priest and the vassal sat in the same 
Council chamber, and the laws of the State were 
founded upon the decrees of the Church. The ecclesi- 
astical power was the sole active principle during the 
long night which followed the downfall of the Roman 
Empire and the subsequent incursion of fierce martial 
hosts that swept down upon Gaul, Italy, and Spain 
from the icy zones of the North and the forests of 
Pannonia, Germany, and the East. It is strange that 
Mr. Ingersoll has failed to observe that liberty, wealth, 
refinement, commerce, art, and civilization flourished 
most in those countries where Christianity was strong- 
est and most influential. 

Macaulay writes that, "During the gloomy and dis- 



Lecture XIV. 303 

astrous centuries which followed the downfall of the 
Roman Empire, Italy had preserved, in a far greater 
degree than any other part of Western Europe, the 
traces of ancient civilization. The night which de- 
scended upon her was the night of an arctic summer. 
The dawn began to reappear before the last reflection 
of the preceding sunset had faded from the horizon. 
It was in the time of the French Merovingians and 
of the Saxon Heptarchy that ignorance and ferocity 
seemed to have done their worst. Rome, protected by 
the sacred character of her pontiffs, enjoyed at least 
comparative security and repose. Even in those re- 
gions where the sanguinary Lombards had fixed their 
monarchy there was comparatively more of wealth, of 
information, of physical comfort, and of social order 
than could be found -in Gaul, Britain, or Germany." 
(Essays, Vol. I, p. 197.) 

These were the days of the great Italian Republics, 
when liberty was firmly established in every city; 
when commerce, art, science, and literature became 
a passion among all classes of people; when Venice, 
Florence, Genoa, and Milan were famed in every land. 
"Italian ships covered every sea; Italian factories rose 
on every shore. The tables of Italian money-changers 
were set in every city. Manufactures flourished. 
Banks were established. The operations of the com- 
mercial machine were facilitated by many useful and 
beautiful inventions. We doubt whether any country 
in Europe, our own excepted, has at the present time 
reached so high a point of wealth and civilization as 
some parts of Italy had attained four hundred years 
ago." (Ibid., p. 199.) 

The author then informs us that the revenue of 



304 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

Florence was "three hundred thousand florins; a sum 
which, allowing for the depreciation of the precious 
metals, was equivalent to six hundred thousand pounds 
sterling; a larger sum than England and Ireland, two 
centuries ago, yielded annually to Elizabeth." Ma- 
caulay tells us that the manufacture of wool alone em- 
ployed two hundred factories and thirty thousand 
workmen, and "eighty banks conducted the com- 
mercial operations, not only of Florence, but of all 
Europe. The transactions of these establishments 
were sometimes of a magnitude which may surprise 
even the contemporaries of the Barings and the Roth- 
schilds. Two houses advanced to Edward III of Eng- 
land upwards of two hundred thousand marks at a 
time when the mark contained more silver than fifty 
shillings of the present day, and when the value of 
silver was more than quadruple of what it is now." 
(Ibid., p. 200.) This sum at the present day would 
be more than ten million dollars. What two banks in 
American to-day could lend ten million dollars? And 
remember that this was only one loan, and perhaps 
there were many other sums, probably aggregating 
as much more. The author says that in the field of 
art, science, and literature there was the same indica- 
tion of greatness and the same spirit of progress. 
"From this time the admiration of learning and genius 
became almost an idolatry among the people of Italy. 
Kings and republics, cardinals and doges, vied with 
each other in honoring and flattering Petrarch. To 
collect books and antiques, to found professorships, 
to patronize men of learning, became almost universal 
fashions among the great. The spirit of literary re- 
search allied itself to that of commercial enterprise, 



Lecture XIV. 305 

Every place to which the merchant princes of Florence 
extended their gigantic traffic, from the bazaars of the 
Tigris to the monasteries of the Clyde, was ransacked 
for medals and manuscripts. Architecture, painting, 
and sculpture were magnificently encouraged. It is 
delightful to turn to the opulent and enlightened States 
of Italy, to the vast and magnificent cities, the ports, 
the arsenals, the villas, the museums, the libraries ; the 
marts, filled with every article of comfort and luxury; 
the factories, swarming with artisans; the Apennines, 
covered with rich cultivation up to their very summits; 
the Po, wafting the harvest of Lombardy to the 
granaries of Venice, and carrying back the silks of 
Bengal and the furs of Siberia to the palaces of Milan. 
With peculiar pleasure, every cultivated mind must 
repose on the fair, the happy, the glorious Florence; 
the halls which rang with the mirth of Pulci; the cell 
where twinkled the midnight lamp of Politian; the 
statues on which the young eye of Michael Angelo 
glared with the frenzy of a kindred inspiration; the 
gardens in which Lorenzo meditated some sparkling 
song for the May-day dance of the Etrurian virgins." 
(Ibid., p. 202.) 

This was Italy in the superstitious ages! Then 
it was that liberty, learning, wealth, commerce, art, 
science, manufactures, flourished in a degree that has 
never been surpassed and scarcely even equaled. That 
was an age of civilization in many respects superior 
to America in the nineteenth century. We have no 
painters, poets, and sculptors that can be compared 
to the gifted men of those days. Samuel Laing says, 
in his observations of Europe, that there are more 
works of art in one city in Italy than in half the 



306 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

kingdom of Great Britain. Laing likewise states in 
the same work that the provinces on the Rhine, in 
manufactures, trade, capital, industry, are far in ad- 
vance of any other portion of Prussia, and those 
provinces including the progressive cities of Aix-la- 
Chapelle, Cologne, Treves, Coblentz, Bonn, and others, 
are intensely Christian; and this is a plain refutation 
of the assertion that religion is inimical to intellectual 
and material advancement. Guizot, speaking of the 
influence of the Church in the past, writes that, "Upon 
the whole, this influence has been salutary; not only 
has it sustained and fertilized the intellectual move- 
ment in Europe, but the system of doctrines and pre- 
cepts, under the name of which it implanted the move- 
ment, was far superior to anything with which the an- 
cient world was acquainted. There was at the same 
time movement and progress. The situation of the 
Church, moreover, gave an extent and a variety to 
the development of the human mind in the modern 
world which it had not possessed previously. In the 
East, intellect is entirely religious ; in Greek society, it 
is exclusively human. In the modern world, the re- 
ligious spirit is mixed up with everything, but it ex- 
cludes nothing. Modern intellect has at once the 
stamp of humanity and of divinity. Human senti- 
ments and interests occupy an important place in our 
literature; and yet the religious character of man — that 
portion of his existence which links him to another 
world — appears in every step; so that the two great 
sources of man's development — humanity and religion 
— have flowed at one time, and that abundantly; and, 
despite all the evils and abuses with which it is mixed, 
the influence of the Church has tended more to develop 



Lecture XIV. 307 

than to compress, more to extend than to confine." 
(History of Civilization, p. 136.) 

It is unnecessary to multiply authorities, but I 
could easily add hundreds of testimonies in corrob- 
oration of every declaration that I have made in this 
lecture. Not only did the Church struggle for the 
establishment of individual and national freedom, but 
the institution of democratic forms of government was 
in many cases approved by members of the hierarchy. 
The republics of Andorra and San Marino and the 
formation of the Magna Charta can justly be claimed 
as the work of the Christian religion. The Church has 
also exerted her authority in humanizing the wild 
manners of barbarous tribes and suppressing the 
spirit of hostility which actuated the rude nations of 
Mediaeval Europe. Referring to the atrocities and fre- 
quency of wars that desolated the land and distracted 
the peace of society, Robertson says: "The Church 
co-operated with the civil magistrate, and interposed 
its authority to extirpate a practice so repugnant to the 
spirit of Christianity. Various Councils issued de- 
crees prohibiting all private wars, and denounced the 
heaviest anathemas against such as should disturb the 
tranquillity of society by claiming or exercising that 
barbarous right. The aid of religion was called in to 
combat and subdue the ferocity of the times. Men 
were required, in the name of God, to sheathe their 
swords, and to remember the sacred ties which united 
them as Christians and as members of the same so- 
ciety." (History of the Middle Ages, p. 28.) 

When we come to the question of religious tolera- 
tion I will confine my remarks to this country alone, 
where freedom of conscience is protected by the 



308 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

majesty of the Government, by the sword of the Nation 
and the blood of the millions who live in tranquillity 
beneath the shadow of the starry banner, the palla- 
dium of our glorious rights and privileges. Who were 
the first to proclaim the gospel of religious toleration? 
Were they atheists? No; they were Christians. 

Roger Williams, the founder of the Baptist Church, 
advocated the untrammeled right of every man to wor- 
ship according to the dictates of his conscience. He 
maintained that the law enjoyed the prerogative of 
enacting decrees for the preservation of public order 
and the punishment of civil offenses; the right to levy 
taxes for the support of the Government ; but that the 
conscience was to enjoy immunity from restraint. 
For these noble sentiments he was obliged to abdicate 
his position in the ministry and retire to Plymouth. 
Still he continued to teach and promulgate the doc- 
trine of religious liberty, "saying that compulsory at- 
tendance at religious worship, as well as taxation for 
the support of the ministry, was contrary to the teach- 
ings of the gospel. When arraigned for these bad 
doctrines he crowned his offenses by telling the Court 
that a test of Church membership in a voter or public 
officer was as ridiculous as the selection of a doctor of 
physic or the pilot of a ship on account of his skill 
in theology." These declarations raised such a storm 
that the apostle of religious liberty was censured for 
heresy and banished from the Colony. However, this 
did not abate his zeal. He went forth from the camp 
of the Puritan fathers, and wended his way, through 
frost and snow and hail and storm, to the land of the 
Wampanoags. He purchased a tract of territory from 
the chief of the tribe, and amidst the wild forest-trees 



Lecture XIV. 309 

he built a temple where every person was called upon 
to invoke God according to his creed, and around him 
gathered holy spirits and loyal souls who were ready 
to die at the stake in defense of their principles of tol- 
eration. What Roger Williams did in New England 
was accomplished by the Colony of Lord Baltimore in 
Maryland. 

"Two years before the founding of Rhode Island," 
writes John Clark Ridpath, "the Catholics of the Ches- 
apeake had emancipated the human conscience, built 
an asylum for the distressed, and laid the foundations 
of a free State." While Massachusetts and Virginia 
were enacting proscriptive laws against dissenters, 
"Maryland was joining with Rhode Island and Con- 
necticut in proclaiming religious freedom." (Rid- 
path, History of the United States, pp. 219-21.) 

In his "History of the Colonization of the United 
States," George Bancroft writes: "Calvert deserves 
to be ranked among the most wise and benevolent 
lawgivers of all ages. He was the first, in the history 
of the Christian world, to seek for religious security 
and peace by the practice of justice, and not by the 
exercise of power; to plan the establishment of popular 
institutions, with the enjoyment of liberty of con- 
science; to advance the career of civilization by recog- 
nizing the rightful equality of all Christian sects. The 
asylum of Papists was the spot where, in a remote 
corner of the world, on the banks of rivers which as 
yet had hardly been explored, the mild forbearance of 
a proprietary adopted religious freedom as the basis 
of the State." (History of Colonies of the United 
States, p. 91.) 

While liberty of conscience was a fundamental 



310 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

principle of the Constitution of the State of Maryland, 
this doctrine was later on embodied in the form of a 
legal statute. "And, whereas, the enforcing of the 
conscience in the matter of religion/' reads this sub- 
lime statute, "hath frequently fallen out to be of dan- 
gerous consequence in those commonwealths where it 
has been practiced, and for the more quiet and peace- 
able government of this province and the better to 
preserve mutual love and amity among the inhab- 
itants, no person within this province, professing to 
believe in Jesus Christ, shall be in any way troubled, 
molested, or discountenanced for his or her religion 
or in the free exercise thereof." (Ibid., p. 9.) 

Mr. Ingersoll claims that America is the grandest 
nation on the globe; and in many respects I agree with 
his opinion. Although other nations may have sur- 
passed us in music, painting, sculpture, and poesy, and 
other peoples, in other ages, may have been more con- 
spicuous for the virtues of charity and chastity ; woman 
may have been more domestic, and therefore more 
amiable and gentle, and consequently she exercised 
a wider and a grander dominion over the heart of man 
and the refinement of society and the civilization of 
nations, — yet I am partial to the land of my birth, and 
I see in the rise of this mighty Republic the culmina- 
tion of all human triumphs, the concentration of hu- 
man genius, the nucleus of human greatness, the mar- 
vel of human energy, progress, and civilization. In 
my opinion, this country is the grandest empire that 
the sun ever gazed upon during the long aeons that 
he has guided the footsteps of the sidereal constella- 
tions with the splendor of his sheen. "We are the 
heirs of all ages, and foremost on the files of time," 



Lecture XIV. 311 

although we have not reached those intellectual 
heights trod by the ancient Hellenes, when "the 
noblest poesy since the hymning of the morning stars 
came virgin from the harp." The idea of liberty is the 
growth of ages; and, although Christianity exerted a 
benign influence in this direction, she was compelled to 
meet the opposition of fierce nomadic tribes and bar- 
barous nations, among whom might was right, and 
\ery often her noblest efforts were frustrated and her 
enactments were ignored. 

Intolerance is not the natural product of Chris- 
tianity, but the abnormal development of the soul. It 
is the child of ignorance, egotism, and selfishness. 
The Church has not always been able to govern the 
minds and hearts of her followers. The persecutor 
is the bigot of his creed and age, and he has been 
found in every country and in every period of the 
Christian era. The inquisitors at Madrid, Louis XIV 
of France, Elizabeth of England, Calvin in Switzer- 
land, Luther in Germany, Knox in Scotland, and the 
Puritans of Massachusetts, were the bigots of their 
day, of their faith, and their nation. Persecution has 
flourished in this country at different periods; and, 
guided by ignorant bigotry and heartless cruelty and 
personal interests, all of which are denounced as 
crimes in the Bible, it has endeavored to ruin the peace 
of this nation and the happiness of our people, by 
creating discord and dissension among those who 
fought under the same standard for the aggrandize- 
ment of our country, the establishment of our liberties, 
and the preservation of the union of these States. 
While professing to worship at the shrine of Chris- 
tianity, religious persecutors have been inimical to the 



312 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

precepts of the gospel, which inculcates the lesson of 
love and charity. They have blotched the escutcheon 
of the Church and aspersed her fair brow with the dis- 
figurement of their own hideous, loathsome lives and 
dark, petrified hearts. Let us be just, and not crimi- 
nate the Church for the iniquities of hypocrites, who 
have donned her immaculate robes to shield their ig- 
noble purposes from the scrutinizing gaze of an im- 
partial world. Blot out the works of these demoniacal 
spirits, erase their grewsome deeds from the page of 
history, and atheism would look in vain for any defects 
in the long and glorious life of Christianity. Let us 
judge the cause of the Church by her doctrines, and 
not by the atrocities of fiends whose crimes were 
condemned by every precept of the New Law as 
taught by the Savior, and promulgated throughout 
all ages by his disciples. 

We must admit that the Church was always the 
friend of the slave, the poor, and the oppressed; and 
many times she raised her voice against the usurpa- 
tions of kings, and broke the rod of despots. Yet 
we grant that liberty, in the widest sense of the term, 
was frequently manacled. Passing in rapid review 
over the mightiest empires of mediaeval times, we 
behold the power of Spain and the chivalry of 
France, the wealth of England and the glory of Ger- 
many; but at the same time we see everywhere, at some 
period or another, despots on thrones, sycophants at 
court, vassals on the lord's demesne, and slaves in 
the castle of the nobleman, the creation of atrocities, 
the establishment of oligarchies, and the perpetuation 
of dynasties. We find subjects, driven by oppressions 
to the formation of juntas and cabals, and these ex- 



Lecture XIV. 313 

tinguished by fire and sword, and bleeding millions 
kissing the feet of their oppressors, and shedding 
tears of forced repentance that their lips had ever 
voiced the aspirations of their hearts, and that their 
hands had ever unsheathed the lance in freedom's 
cause. We turn with a sigh of relief from these dark 
and bloody scenes to contemplate the triumphs of 
our immortal country, whose institutions are the cre- 
ation of a patriotic people, whose foundation is laid 
deep in the hearts of her subjects, whose preservation 
rests solely on the undying devotion of her liberty- 
loving millions; and we bless the inspiration of the 
poet when he touched his lyre to sing Columbia's 
praise, and give her the distinctive appellation which 
she will bear until the Goddess of Liberty shall expire 
amidst the smoldering ruins of the "land of the free 
and the home of the brave." 

When Genoa's fearless navigator sailed o'er the 
western surge, he never dreamed that he was mapping 
out the exile's path across the trackless waste; he 
never dreamed that he was hunting the star of free- 
dom which had paled in Eastern skies, and which 
had glided down the slanting arch to sing her vesper 
psalm in the poet's Utopian fields, that the clouds 
which gathered around the gates of the Occident, had 
wrapped in eternal mist and gloom and darkness. 
Columbus never dreamed that his little fleet was the 
vanguard in that long procession of pilgrims who 
would sing peans of joy amidst the wilds of a new 
world ; he never dreamed that the year of his discovery 
was the dawn of a new era in the history of humanity, 
when an exodus of nature's noblemen from the thrall- 
dom of Egypt would be instituted, and the tide of emi- 



314 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

gration would never cease to flow, until the kingdoms 
of the Old World would be drained of serf and slave, 
and the last echo of the expiring victim would die 
away in the gloom and shadow of ancient keeps. 
When the stalwart son of Italy promised the mu- 
tineers that if land were not seen within three days he 
would veer his course towards the rocks of Gibraltar; 
when disappointment filled his soul, and his hopes were 
dashed to pieces; when the shadow of despondency 
fell like a pall of death upon his grand and noble 
spirit, he never dreamed that the land of his vision 
would become the asylum of the homeless and the 
stranger, where gallant heroes would consecrate the 
temple of freedom with the song of the ancient muse, 
whose notes of victory would vibrate through regal 
halls, and shake the throne of kings. 

The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries form a re- 
markable epoch in the annals of nations. The By- 
zantine Empire had perished in the East, and the 
Crescent's shimmering rays had danced on the ripples 
of the Bosphorus. The god of battles had hitched 
his prancing steeds to the war-car, and had thrown 
his firebrands on Rhodes and Malta; the red glare of 
his burning flame painted the skies of the Mediter- 
ranean, and filled the mirror of the deep with hideous 
phantoms. The crash of Belgrade's walls and towers 
echoed among the rocks of the Balkans, and broke in 
doleful tones along the mountains of the North. 
Spanish cavaliers walked the marble halls of Moorish 
chiefs, and the clank of their sabers mingled with the 
music of the fountain "and the splash of limpid rills." 
The genius of Michael Angelo had conceived the 
idea and sketched the plan of the Roman basilica; 



Lecture XIV. 315 

Julius II had blessed the corner-stone of the grandest 
cathedral in the world; the scholars of the Vatican 
were found at every court and seat of learning on 
the globe in search of dusty tomes and ancient relics 
and works of art to enrich the archives and library of 
the Papal city. Leo X sought the patronage of liter- 
ati, and munificently rewarded the efforts of genius 
with grand and courtly honors; the master minds 
of Europe were summoned from the classic halls of 
Cambridge and Oxford, from the borders of the Zuy- 
der Zee, the gay faubourgs of Paris and the sunny 
vales of Tuscany, to adorn the Eternal City with the 
splendor of their names and the glory of their works; 
the historic grandeur which immortalized the Augus- 
tan era awoke from the silent mausoleums where slept 
the dust of Caesars. The union of Christendom, whose 
foundation had been established in the ashes of the 
Western Empire, was now dissolved; the Eastern 
Hemisphere was distracted by civil and religious dis- 
sension; persecution swept over Europe like the in- 
undation that moved down from the German Ocean, 
when the patriot opened the dikes of the Nether- 
lands to chase the invader from his native moors. 
Henry VIII relighted the fires of Smithfield, and the 
groan of the Lollard awoke again in New Castle prison ; 
Mary filled the cells of London Tower with courtly 
traitors and noblemen of fell designs; and Elizabeth 
crowded the dungeons of the realm with the victims 
of her spleen, and dyed the hills of Erin with human 
gore. High Churchmen drank the blood of Dissenters, 
and Calvinists fought for their creed in battle and in 
speech. Prussia became the center of Protestant war- 
fare on the Continent, and Madrid silenced the voice 



316 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

of heresy with the terrors of the Inquisition and the 
appalling scenes of the auto-da-fe. It was an age of 
ruthless barbarity. The angel of freedom, banished 
from the temple of truth and the sanctuary of relig- 
ion, flew across the Western main, and perched on 
the wild shores of the New World, where the Indian 
chief sat in judgment upon the disputes that arose 
among the dusky children of his tribe. Here stretched 
the lake's blue sheet, where flashed the oar of the 
fisherman in the beams of the noontide sun. Here 
noble rivers swept the mountain ledge, and laved the 
brow of verdant hill and shady wood and emerald lea. 
ITere the shout of the huntsman aroused the sleeping 
panther from his lair, and filled the forest glade with 
weird sounds and distant echoes that chimed with the 
psalm of the streams and the anthem of the groves. 
Here, on nature's broad empire, our fathers launched 
their ships, and pitched their tents, and lit their camp- 
fires, and hewed the pine and the beech, and built the 
cabin and the home, the church and the school, the 
hamlet and the town. God had formed the regions 
of the Occident for the asylum of the refugee, where 
the wanderer, banished from home and fatherland, 
might rest his weary limbs and forget his sorrows in 
genial draughts from Lethe's cooling stream, and 
pass away his happy years in dreamland's sweet in- 
toxication. On all sides lay the mighty barrier of 
the deep, that foamed, and surged, and rolled against 
the rocky reefs, and every note, accentuated by the 
swelling sea, and whispered over hill and highland 
by the restless gale, sang the dirge of bitter thralldom 
that reigned in the Old World's dark bastiles, like a 
quaver akin to the sad wail of the ancient bard, when 



Lecture XIV. 317 

he chanted the Miserere mei. From the very dawn of 
her history, from the earliest days of her infancy, when 
she lay wrapped in swaddling-clothes, and was rocked 
in the cradle by the hand of the wild adventurer and the 
rude barbarian, Columbia's smiling vales and somber 
woods became the home of the exile, the city of 
refuge, the tabernacle of freedom, guarded and pro- 
tected by a pillar of light and an angel of love. The 
Puritan, hunted like a beast of prey by the gendarmes 
of the law, panoplied in shining helmet and steel 
cuirass, girt with lance and spear and the headsman's 
deadly blade, stole away beneath the mantle of the 
night, and flung his hopes to the breeze, and trusted to 
the wild winds and stormy skies to waft his light canoe 
over the crested surge to friendly shores. He stood 
upon the beach where the Mayflmver rode at anchor, 
and bade a last farewell to whilom friends; he 
watched the great vessel spread her sails, and cleave 
the rolling billows that dashed against her steel-clad 
hull; he walked the deck, and saw the mountain's 
distant head sink behind the snowcapped waves, as 
they rose and fell upon the broad, aqueous plain. 
When the gray cliffs and naked rocks of the New 
World shone dimly through the misty haze, the lips 
of the pilgrim voiced a hymn of thanksgiving to the 
Great Jehovah who had led the hosts of young Israel 
through the Red Sea into the wilderness, where they 
could worship God with the soul's sweetest anthems 
and the heart's purest love. 

Hither came the disciples of Calvin, who were 
forced to flee from the silvery lakes nestling among the 
purple-clad highlands of their own loved Scotland. 
The Baptists fled from their native Britain, and sang 



318 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

among our forest glens the sweet strains and 
sublime canticles that cheered the heart of Bunyan, 
as the setting sun enhanced the solemn shadows of 
Bedford's gloomy dungeon. Hither came the Meth- 
odists from York and Hastings, and the environments 
of London and the shades of Windsor forest. Hither 
came the Nonconformists from the foot of Snowden 
and the levee of the Tweed. The rustic from Holland, 
the artisan from Belgium, the republican from France, 
the patriot from Poland, the nihilist from Russia, the 
Christian from the land of the Ottoman, found an 
asylum beneath the stars of the West. The pioneers 
built their hamlets in the wild, unbroken wood, 
cleared away the forests, sowed the grain, and reaped 
the harvest, and hunted the deer and the buffalo. 
After a long day's toil amidst the swamps and along 
the silvery streams, and by the bay's blue sheet in 
quest of food for their families, they were compelled 
to sit around the camp-fire at night, and guard their 
homes from the red man's torch, and protect their 
wives and babes from the warrior's deadly tomahawk. 
After many years the Colonies increased, and grew 
into a mighty coalition of States; civilization followed 
the path of the hunter to the wilderness; cities lined 
the river banks, and ships plied on the lake ; the plow- 
man furrowed the virgin soil, and the yellow grain 
waved, and the golden fruit flourished where shades 
had lingered for ages. When peace and prosperity 
smiled on every face, Mars arose from the gloom 
of Westminster; and the rattle of his fiery chariot and 
the sound of his iron wheels awoke the stalwart men 
of New England and the. sterling heroes of Virginia. 
The knell of freedom rang out in clear accents from 



Lecture XIV. 319 

the marble halls of the British Parliament, and battle- 
ships, armed with engines of destruction and arrayed 
in the mantle of death, swept across the purple flood 
to the rockbound shores of Columbia. The fate of 
the Colonies was weighed in the balance. Brave men 
turned pale, and stout hearts grew faint. The war 
came. Our ranks were thinned by the fierce musketry 
or unerring marksmen and the shining blade of well- 
disciplined troops; our cities were destroyed, our 
fields laid waste, our homes robbed of fathers, hus- 
bands and sons; the woods rang with the cry of 
widows; the mountains echoed with the wail of 
mothers, and rivers were flooded with orphans' tears; 
our soldiers were driven to desperation by distress 
and want; hunger pinched the faces of some, and 
sorrow furrowed the brow of others. But after eight 
years of unexampled heroism our starry banner 
waved in triumph above the flag of Britain; the astral 
light of freedom shone over burning cities and smok- 
ing ruins and bloody vales and the lonely graves 
where heroes slept. 

Here was established an empire, where liberty was 
permitted to expand her power, and extend her wing 
over every opinion and every creed, every race and 
every color, every man and every child, every maid 
and every mother, every woman and every wife. And 
to whom are we indebted for the formation of this 
grand and glorious nation? Infidels or Christians? 
History echoes, Christians. Who were the discoverers 
and explorers of this vast hemisphere? History 
echoes, Christians. Who bore the perils of the forest, 
and jeoparded their lives among the untutored sav- 
ages for the sake of erecting a sanctuary for per- 



320 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

secuted humanity? History echoes, Christians. Who 
fought our battles, and enthroned the Goddess of 
Liberty within the halls of our National Capitol? His- 
tory echoes, Christians. Who framed, and signed, and 
sealed the Declaration of Independence with their own 
heart's blood? History echoes, Christians. Who 
drafted and adopted the Constitution of this Republic? 
Who was it that declared that "no religious test shall 
ever be required as a qualification to any office or 
public trust under the United States?" History 
echoes, Christians. The only two infidels, as far as 
I know, connected with the Revolution, were Thomas 
Paine and Thomas Jefferson, and both of them be- 
lieved in God. The author of the "Age of Reason" 
has beautifully said in his discourse, delivered at the 
Society of Theophilanthropists at Paris, that if we 
want to contemplate God's power, "we see it in the 
immensity of the creation. Do we want to contem- 
plate his wisdom? We see it in the unchangable order 
by which the incomprehensible whole is governed. 
Do' we want to contemplate his munificence? We see 
it in the abundance with which he fills the earth. Do 
we want to contemplate his mercy? We see it in his 
not withholding that abundance even from the un- 
thankful." (Age of Reason, p. 301.) 

Let us compare these beautiful thoughts with the 
teachings of Ingersoll; let us compare Paine's hopes 
of immortal life with Ingersoll's materialism, and we 
will discover that the author of "The Crisis," the tocsin 
of rebellion, the foe of oppression, the friend of liberty, 
the patron of justice, the high priest of humanity, dif- 
fered more widely from Ingersollism than he differed 
from the tenets of Christianity. Therefore, when the 



Lecture XIV. 321 

Colonel asks the question, "Is science indebted to the 
Church for a single fact?" the past and present reply 
that the Church and men of the Church have adorned 
the field of science with thousands of facts; the past 
and present reply that Christians have discovered the 
laws of gravitation, the center of the solar system, 
the motions of the planets; the past and present reply 
that a Christian discovered Ceres, the first of the 
asteroids, and prepared a catalogue of seven thousand 
stars; the past and present reply that a Christian dis- 
covered eight comets; that Christians created and 
elaborated the science of hydrostatics, hydraulics, and 
hydrodynamics; that Christians gave us nearly all we 
know of mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, navi- 
gation, botany, geography, and have made us familiar 
with nearly every part of the globe, with rivers, lakes, 
deserts, and mountains. 

In response to the Colonel's query, "What Church 
has been the asylum for persecuted truth? What re- 
form has been inaugurated by the Church?" the 
civilized world of all ages accentuates the truth that 
the Church was foremost in every reform that has 
been accomplished for the benefit of humanity. She 
broke the fetters of the captive; she liberated and 
enfranchised the serf and slave; she taught and upheld 
the doctrine of monogamy; she protected the rights 
and glorified the sphere of woman; she consecrated 
and deified feminine virtues; she curbed the power 
of tyrants, and demolished the throne of despotism; 
she. hallowed the aspirations of the patriot, and sanc- 
tified the spirit of democracy; she civilized the Goth 
and the Hun and the Heruli, and established the king- 
dom of the Franks, the Celts, and the Slavs; and her 



322 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

children founded the Republic of America, where all 
the science and learning- and civilization of all the 
nations, and all the peoples, and all the ages, have 
been focused in the creation of every gift and every 
blessing that has gilded every tear of g*rief, and filled 
every face with joy, and made every angel smile, as 
he looked down from his jasper throne upon this 
mighty Nation, whose factories furnish textiles for 
many peoples, whose ships have filled the granaries 
of Europe with wheat and corn, whose flag has floated 
on every breeze, whose stars have glittered in every 
sky, and which rejoices in the weal of the millions who 
sleep on her bosom, and live her life, and breathe her 
breath, and imbibe the noble inspirations that go out 
with the beating of her great and busy heart. 



LECTURE XV. 

IN his lecture on Skulls, Mr. Ingersoll states in his re- 
ply to the remarks of Rabbi Bien,of Chicago, that "I 
want to remind you that in this country the Jews were 
first admitted to the privileges of citizens; that in this 
country they were first given all their rights." This 
was accomplished by the sixth section of the Consti- 
tution, which declares that "no religious test shall be 
required as a qualification to any office or public trust 
under the United States." The Constitution was 
adopted in 1787. During the reign of Charlemagne, 
Jews were elected to the highest offices, filled the most 
responsible positions, were delegated as ambassadors 
to foreign courts to transact business of vast mag- 
nitude. The golden age of the Jews continued, in still 
increasing prosperity, during the reign of Charle- 
magne's successor, Louis the Debonair. At his court 
the Jews were so powerful that their interest was 
courted by the presence of nobles and princes. They 
were given even more rights than other citizens, and 
they had such unbounded influence, that they changed 
certain laws and regulations, and were exempted from 
certain taxes. (Milman's History of the Jews, 
p. 526-27.) 

I could give other sublime examples of toleration 
and citizenship granted to the sons of Abraham hun- 
dreds of years before the formation of our Republic 
and the framing of its wise and liberal laws. I merely 
refer to the Gallic toleration of the synagogue to show 

3 2 3 



324 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

that Mr. Ingersoll is an unreliable authority on every 
question that he manipulates. 

"Every country maintained that it was no robbery 
to take the property of Mohammedans, and no murder 
to kill the owner." 

It requires more credulity than common sense to 
accept such a broad statement without authority, 
especially when we know that the laws of all European 
nations condemned theft and homicide, irrespective 
of race, color, or creed. 

In the "Conquest of Granada," Irving informs us 
that the Spaniards never broke their plighted faith 
with the Moors. When Boabdil was in the power of 
Ferdinand, the Christian sovereign treated the fallen 
son of Islam with all the courtesy due to the proudest 
monarch of Europe. The Moslem prince was enter- 
tained in the royal city with all the grandeur and 
chivalry of the nation, and sent back to his people, 
loaded with testimonials of friendship, and entertained 
and honored on his journey with a convoy of Castilian 
nobles. The Spaniards kept their promises when the 
gates of Granada were opened, and Christian cavaliers 
promenaded through the Court of Lions and the Hall 
of Abencerrages ; and the arms of Leon and Castile 
protected the sons of the desert in their lives, property, 
civil rights, and free exercise of their religion. (See 
Irving's Conquest of Granada, p. 86 ct seq.; 343 et seq.) 

These acts of honor and generosity occurred from 
the years 1481 to 1491 ; and Lord Bacon was not 
born till 1561, a period of seventy years subsequent to 
the fall of Granada, and therefore it is false to say 
with Mr. Ingersoll that the English philosopher and 
statesman was "the first man who maintained that a 



Lecture XV. 325 

Christian country was bound to keep its plighted 
faith with a Mohammedan nation." 

Mr. Ingersoll says that the work written by Cos- 
mos in the early centuries of the Christian era against 
the sphericity of the globe, was indorsed by the 
Church, and "that the Church declared that whoever 
believed either less or more was a heretic, and would 
be dealt with as such." 

Now, Mr. Ingersoll, give us your authority for 
this statement. We have serious misgivings about 
your inspiration, and we would be pleased to ascer- 
tain where you glean so much rare information. 

"The Church knew that the moment the earth 
ceased to be the center of the universe, arid became 
a mere speck in the starry sphere of existence, every 
religion w r ould become a thing of the past." 

What relation is there between the relative mag- 
nitude of the globes and ecclesiastical policy? What 
effect has the formation of the Copernican system 
produced in the field of theology? If you think, Mr. 
Ingersoll, that any enlightened mind would accept 
your nugatory and silly declarations, you must be 
devoid of the smallest quantity of common sense. 

"In the name and by the authority of ghosts, men 
trampled upon the rights of women and children." 

This effete accusation, unsubstantiated, as it is, by 
a single historical fact, seems to be the nucleus of all 
Mr. Ingersoll's lectures, his slogan against the stand- 
ard of Christian hope. Not wishing to tire my hear- 
ers with details, I will just mention a few Councils that 
legislated for the protection of the gentle sex. The 
Council of Palencia, in 1129; the Council of Clermont, 
in 1 1 30; the Council of Rheims, in 11 57; the eleventh 



326 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

Council of Lateran, in 1179; the Council of Oxford, 
in 1222, and the Council of Arbogen, in 1396, — all 
passed decrees for the protection of the poor, helpless, 
and weak, including women by name, and menaced 
those, who would dare to molest them, with the 
weightiest penalties of the Church, those excommuni- 
cations so frequently scorned and ridiculed by modern 
infidels. 

Hallam writes: ''Orphans and widows, the stranger 
and the poor, the pilgrim and the leper, under the 
appellation of persons in distress, came within the 
peculiar cognizance and protection of the Church." 
(Middle Ages, p. 297.) 

Speaking of the effects of chivalry in Europe, 
Robertson says: "To check the violence of overgrown 
oppressors; to succor the distressed; to rescue the 
helpless from captivity; to protect, or to avenge 
women, orphans, and ecclesiastics who could not bear 
arms in their own defense; to redress wrongs, and re- 
move grievances, were deemed acts of the highest 
honor and merit. Valor, humanity, courtesy, justice, 
honor, were the characteristic qualities of chivalry. 
To these were added religion, which mingled itself 
with every passion and institution during the Middle 
Ages, and by infusing a large proportion of enthusi- 
astic zeal, gave them such force as carried them to 
romantic excess. This institution, in which valor, 
gallantry, and religion were so strangely blended, was 
wonderfully adapted to the taste and genius of martial 
nobles; and its effects were soon visible in their man- 
ners. War was carried on with less ferocity when 
humanity came to be deemed the ornament of knight- 
hood no less than courage. More gentle and polished 



Lecture XV. 327 

manners were introduced when courtesy was recom- 
mended as the most amiable of knightly virtues. 
Violence and oppression decreased when it was reck- 
oned meritorious to check and punish them. A 
scrupulous adherence to truth, with the most religious 
attention to fulfill every engagement, became the dis- 
tinctive characteristic of a gentleman, because chivalry 
was regarded as the school of honor, and inculcated 
the most delicate sensibility with respect to that point. 
The sentiments which chivalry inspired had a wonder- 
ful influence on manners and conduct during the 
twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries." 
(Middle Ages, pp. 43-4.) 

Among other historians who confirm these views 
I will mention Hallam, who says that "courtesy had 
always been the proper attribute of knighthood, pro- 
tection of the weak its legitimate duty; but these were 
heightened to a pitch of enthusiasm when woman be- 
came their object. There was little jealousy shown 
in the treatment of that sex, at least in France, the 
fountain of chivalry; they were present at festivals, at 
tournaments, and sat promiscuously in the halls of 
their castle." (Middle Ages, p. 512.) The author 
states that loyalty, valor, courtesy, justice, honor, 
munificence, formed collectively the character of a 
knight. 

Lecky states that Christianity was a potent factor 
in the mollification of barbarian ruthlessness, the cul- 
tivation of manners, and the development of female 
virtues. After the mighty array of testimonies that 
I have furnished on this and other questions, themes 
so dear to the heart of Ingersoll, I think, if the Colonel 
has any respect for truth, that he will apologize to 



328 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

the great American people for all the falsehoods that 
he has fabricated, for all the misrepresentations that 
he has palmed off as facts, for all the unlettered 
auditors that he has beguiled with forgeries. A knight 
errant of mediaeval history would sacrifice comfort, 
wealth, home, and life before he would permit his 
character to be stained with the infamy of dishonesty 
which brands nearly every utterance that has fallen 
from the lips of the great apostle of agnosticism. 

"In those days there was no liberty." 

O'Leary writes of the Italian Republics: "The 
black pall of slavery, with its concomitant train of 
evils, rested like a deadly nightmare on the ancient 
republics of Carthage, Sparta, Athens, and Rome. 
In the full blaze of Grecian culture and intelligence, 
Aristotle wrote in his 'Politics:' Tt is evident that 
some are naturally freemen, and others naturally 
slaves; and in the case of the latter, slavery is as use- 
ful as it is just.' But on Italian soil, after Christianity 
had conquered the paganism of Rome and the bar- 
barism of the North, Republics of Liberty, Fraternity, 
and Equality were cradled under the fostering influence 
of the Church. On the banks of the Arno; in beauti- 
ful Florence; in Genoa, the crescent sea-city on the 
mountains; in Venice, the queen of the sea; in Rome, 
the Tiber city on the seven hills, and along the rocky 
range of the Apennines to the towns and mountains 
of Trinacria, the doctrines of human freedom had their 
growth, — in some places under one governmental 
form; in others, under another. 

"To them (the Republics of Italy) may be traced 
the rise or revival of commerce, industry, manufac- 
tures, architecture, sculpture, poetry, painting, music, 



Lecture XV. 329 

geography, self-government, and the extension of 
human knowledge. Since the days of Athens and 
Alexandria, no two cities have done so much for the 
advancement of human knowledge among mankind 
as Rome and Florence, in the Middle Ages. They con- 
tain more masterpieces in every department of art 
than any other cities; and while Rome has always been 
the center of light and learning, Florence can boast 
of being the birthplace of Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, 
Guicciardini, Lorenzo de Medici, Galileo, Leonardo 
da Vinci, Benvenuto Cellini, Sarto, and Vespucci." 
(Ireland among Nations, p. 77.) 

I hope that you will pardon me for giving another 
quotation on this often reiterated calumny. Hallam 
writes in relation to the Magna Charta of England: 
"An equal distribution of civil rights to all classes of 
freemen forms the peculiar beauty of the Charter. 
And as far as we are guided by historical testimony, 
two great men, the pillars of our Church and State, 
may be considered as entitled beyond the rest to the 
glory of this monument: Stephen Langton, Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, and William, Earl of Pembroke. 
To their temperate zeal for a legal government, Eng- 
land was indebted during that critical period for the 
two greatest blessings that patriotic statesmen could 
confer: the establishment of civil liberty upon an im- 
movable basis, and the preservation of national inde- 
pendence under the ancient line of sovereigns." 
(English Constitution, p. 341.) 

Mr. Ingersoll says that in ancient times the laborer 
and the poor "were considered but little above the 
beast." 

In reply to this unauthenticated declaration I will 



33° The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

confine my observations to a few countries, but shall 
extend them to distinct periods. William Cobbett 
writes in his '"History of the Reformation" that the 
tithes, offerings, and income from the real property 
of the Church "went in great part to feed the hungry, 
to clothe the naked, to lodge and feed the stranger, 
to sustain the widow and the orphan, and to heal the 
wounded and the sick; that, in short, a great part, and, 
indeed, one of the chief parts of the business of this 
Church was to take care that no person, however low 
in life, should suffer from want, either of sustenance or 
care." In those days "there was hospitality and char- 
ity in the land, and the horrid word paupers had never 
been so much as thought of." (Page 217.) 

Lecky writes: "The enthusiasm of charity mani- 
fested in the Church speedily attracted the attention of 
the pagans. The ridicule of Lucian, and the vain 
efforts of Julian to produce a rival system of charity 
within the limits of paganism, emphatically attested 
both its pre-eminence and its catholicity. Christianity 
for the first time made charity a rudimentary virtue, 
giving it a leading place in the moral type and in the 
exhortations of its teachers. Besides its general in- 
fluence in stimulating the affections, it effected a com- 
plete revolution in this sphere, by regarding the poor 
as the special representatives of the Christian Founder, 
and thus making the love of Christ, rather than the 
love of man, the principle of charity." After enumer- 
ating the works of Christian charity in every field, 
he gives a long catalogue of philanthropists, both men 
and women, priests and bishops, who gave up every- 
thing for the good of humanity, to alleviate the sor- 
rows of the infirm; to soothe the heart of the unfor- 



Lecture XV. 331 

tunate; to administer to the victims of disease and 
pestilence, and to relieve the poor and the oppressed. 
Charity, for the first time in the history of mankind, 
'lias inspired many thousands of men and women at 
the sacrifice of all worldly interests, and often under 
circumstances of extreme discomfort or danger, to 
devote their entire lives to the single object of assua- 
ging the sufferings of humanity. It has covered the 
globe with countless institutions of mercy, absolutely 
unknown to the pagan world." (History of European 
Morals, Vol. II, p. 78-86.) 

The opinion of these writers is sustained by every 
unprejudiced author on that question. 

"Ignorance, like a vast cowl, covered the brain 
of the world. Every man who could read or write 
was suspected of being a heretic in those days." 

There was no ignorance in those days like the ig- 
norance of this declaration, as I have already shown 
from the testimony of the most reliable historians. 
I hope I will not impose upon the patience of my 
hearers by giving one more quotation relative to this 
subject. In referring to the philosophy of the Middle 
Ages, Robertson says that the ardor which men dis- 
played in this direction is "astonishing. Philosophy 
was never cultivated in any enlightened age with 
greater zeal. Schools, upon the model of those opened 
by Charlemagne, were opened in every cathedral, 
and almost in every monastery of note. Colleges and 
universities were erected and formed into communi- 
ties or corporations governed by their own laws, and 
invested with separate and extensive jurisdiction over 
their members. A regular course of studies was 
planned. Privileges of great value were conferred 



332 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

on masters and scholars. Nor was it in the schools 
alone, that superiority in science led to reputation 
and authority; it became the object of respect in life." 
(History of the Middle Ages, p. 46.) 

During the early ages of Christianity, when the 
blood of the Church was sought by the myrmidons 
of the Government in every quarter of the vast Roman 
Empire; when the infant Church was forced to burn 
the lamp of faith amidst the gloom of subterranean 
caverns, where no officer or spy of the Imperial City 
could detect her; when dungeons and prisons were 
filled with the best citizens and the noblest families 
of the State, for no other offense than the crime of 
enhancing the dignity of human nature by withdraw- 
ing the homage of the mind and the love of the heart 
from rude idols, and adoring a Supreme Power, the 
Creator of all the roving stars, and all the golden 
suns, and all the flaming worlds that marshal forth 
in shining array into purple fields of space ; when every 
city protected by the imperial eagles was crimsoned 
with the purple tide of life that flowed from the veins 
of those who venerated the emblem of salvation and 
invoked the name of Jesus; when Antioch and Jeru- 
salem, Alexandria and Csesarea, were filled with blood ; 
when the storm of pagan fury swept over the world 
from the walls of Carthage to the land of the Gaul, 
and from the Pillars of Hercules to the sands of the 
Nile and the valley of the Jordan, — even then Christian- 
ity was marching forth beneath the god of despotism 
and through the flames of vengeance to the lofty peaks 
of thought and science. The colleges of Rome, Alex- 
andria, Nisbis, Carthage, and Milan, adorned with the 
splendor of such men as Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, 



Lecture XV. 333 

and Cyril, sent forth a flood of learning that fascinated 
the noblest intellects of the ancient world. 

Later on in the history of the Christian era, Ire- 
land took the lead in mental culture. McGhee writes 
that during the first three centuries after the introduc- 
tion of Christianity, Ireland was the light of the 
world and the glory of the West. She had ten great 
universities, accommodating very frequently seven 
thousand students, besides innumerable colleges and 
schools. Hither came the scholars of Europe to seek 
wisdom and science. Hither came students from the 
Tweed and the Avon, the Loire and the Rhine, from 
the mountain peaks of Spain and the cascades of 
Switzerland. These institutions were supported by 
endowments. "They were essentially free schools; 
not only free as to lessons given, but the Venerable 
Bede tells us that they supplied free bed and board 
and books to those who resorted to them from abroad. 
The prince and the clansmen of every principality in 
which a school was situated, endowed it with a certain 
share — often an ample one — of the common land of 
the clan." "When, at the sound of early bell; two or 
three thousand of these students from foreign lands," 
writes McGhee, "poured into the silent streets, and 
made their way towards the lighted church to join in 
the service of matin, mingling, as they went or re- 
turned, the tongues of the Gael, the Cimbri, the Pict, 
the Saxon, and the Frank, or hailing and answering 
each other" in the Latin language, "the universal lan- 
guage of the Church, the angels of heaven must have 
loved to contemplate the union of so much persever- 
ance with so much piety." (History of Ireland, Vol. I, 
p. 40, etc.) 



334 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

An Irish missionary, Virgilius of Salzburg, main- 
tained the sphericity of the globe, and Pope Zach'ary, 
on account of his scientific researches and incessant 
labors for the dissemination of knowledge, raised him 
to the Episcopal See of Salzburg, and he was sub- 
sequently canonized by Gregory IX. This does not 
seem to prove that Christianity is inimical to learning, 
and that the Church has tabooed science. The as- 
tronomical and geographical acquisitions of Dungal 
and Dicuil have been highly lauded by such eminent 
critics as Alexander Von Humboldt, Muratori, and 
Latronne. The schools of "Lindisfarne, in England; 
of Bobbio, in Italy; of Verdun, in France; and of 
Warzburg, Ratisbon, Erfurth, Cologne, and Vienna, 
in Germany," were founded by Irish ecclesiastics re- 
sponding to the wishes of the hierarchy of the Church. 
I can not refrain from giving a quotation from the 
facile pen of J. O'Leary, the author of that gem of 
poetic thought, "Ireland among the Nations:" "The 
clouds of desolation and death rest upon the nations 
of Europe, and wars and rumors of war sound from 
afar as the voice of distant thunder; but the light of 
science and civilization that shone upon the isles of 
Greece and Western Asia, and the glory of Christianity 
that was bright over the hills of Rome, concentrate 
their rays, and smile upon our happy and holy Ire- 
land. Nations abroad that are in gloom see our light, 
and come to walk in our brightness and our glory. 
Let us stand on the ocean-leaguered shore of holy, 
happy Ireland, and follow in spirit the unconquerable 
armies of her children as they march ever onward to 
give battle to heathenism, ferocity, ignorance, and 
savagery. Let us behold the venerable Columbkill, 



Lecture XV. 335 

as he leaves his own loved Dervy of the Oaks, and 
urges his wicker boat across the angry ocean-river 
that rolls by his new home on the cliffs and crags of 
unvanquished and liberty-loving Caledonia." 

"Shall we follow the Irish missionary army to 
Lindisfarne and to Oxford? Shall we see them traverse 
the land of the Gaul? Surely, of the Irish spirit it 
might be said that it was a vessel of election to carry 
Christian civilization before Gentiles and kings and the 
children of Israel." We see the grand work of edu- 
cation progressing in every land under the fostering 
care of the Church. 

A Council of Rome, in 826, ordained that schools 
should be established at cathedral churches through- 
out the world. The Council of Metz in the eighth 
century, and Mayence in the ninth, issued similar 
orders to the parochial clergy. Educational measures 
were adopted, and decrees establishing the main- 
tenance of free schools were issued by the Council of 
Vaison in 529; the Council of Orleans, in 800; by the 
Council of Constantinople, in 680; by the Council of 
Lateran, in 11 79, and by proclamation sent forth, 
stamped with the seal of the Government, in the time 
of Charlemagne and his successor, Lothaire I. I will 
sum up all I wish to say on education in the Middle 
Ages, sanctioned and sustained by the Church, in an 
extract taken from the pen of J. Danielo. The author 
writes that, "We can form no idea at the present day of 
the importance and of the numbers of the University 
of France towards the close of the twelfth century. 
Rendered illustrious by Peter Lombard, St. Anselm, 
William de Champaux, and Abelard, it had already 
become the light and the rendezvous of the learned, 



336 The Mistakes of Tngersoll. 

and the resort of students from all Europe. It was 
the glory of the Western world, and France, Athens, 
and Alexandria, according to the testimony of con- 
temporary writers, never had schools so numerous 
or so brilliant. In fact, the number of university stu- 
dents often exceeded twenty-five thousand. Nearly 
all the celebrated men, and many of the Popes, bishops, 
and abbots of that period were Sieves and admirers 
of the University of Paris ; many of them, too, had been 
among its professors, and respectfully called it their 
mother. " 

Is Mr. Ingersoll aware of all this? Is he aware 
that Italy and Spain and England were rivals cf France 
in learning? Does he know that in the famous Uni- 
versity of Oxford, during the Middle Ages, there were 
nearly three hundred halls and private schools, whereas 
now there are not more than perhaps a dozen ? Does 
he know that in those so-called "Dark Ages" all the 
ladies and gentlemen of European courts could speak 
Latin as fluently and as eloquently as they spoke their 
native language? Does he know that the students of 
the Irish universities, and most of the people of the 
kingdom were as familiar with the ancient tongue of 
Rome as we are to-day with English? Why, then, 
is he not ashamed to say that "ignorance like a vast 
cowl covered the brain of the world?" 

Professor John S. Lord, in his "Beacon Lights of 
History," writes that while the speculations of the 
scholastics were not practical or profitable, yet that 
no age has produced a brighter galaxy of men; and 
their researches and investigations formed the funda- 
mental principles upon which the philosophical super- 
structure of the nineteenth century has been erected. 



Lecture XV. 337 

"In the fifteenth century the following law was in 
force in England : Whoever reads the Scripture in the 
mother tongue, shall forfeit land, cattle, life, and goods 
for themselves and their heirs forever." 

Permit me to give you the authority of Hallam 
in reply to this crimination: "In the eighth and ninth 
centuries, when the Vulgate had ceased to be generally 
intelligible, there is no reason to suspect any intention 
in the Church to deprive the laity of the Scriptures. 
Translations were freely made into the vernacular lan- 
guages, and perhaps read in churches. Louis the 
Debonair is said to have caused a German version 
of the New Testament to be made. Otfrid, in the same 
century, rendered the Gospels, or rather abridged 
them, into German verse. This work is still intact, and 
is in several respects an object of curiosity. In the 
eleventh century we find translations of the Psalms, 
Job, and the Maccabees, into French." (Middle 
Ages, p. 507.) 

In the year 428, ten centuries before the age alluded 
to by Mr. Ingersoll, Mesrop and Sahog procured for 
the Armenians a Bible translated into their mother 
tongue. Ulfila, the inventor of Gothic characters, 
translated the Bible into that tongue for the benefit 
of his countrymen in the early part of the fourth cen- 
tury. The Church has never prohibited the reading 
of authentic versions of the Bible, as Hallam says. 
Innocent III, when told that certain peoples read the 
Bible in secret conventicles, the Pope rather approved 
of their great desire to learn the truths of religion, but 
condemned their extravagant views and fanatic the- 
ories which they pretended were contained in the 
Sacred Volume. 



338 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

The author of "History of the Middle Ages" writes 
in regard to the sectaries of the thirteenth century, 
that, "In general we find an extravagant fanaticism 
among them; and I do not know how to look for 
any amelioration of society from the Franciscan Se- 
ceders, who quibbled about the property of things con- 
sumed by use, or by mystical visionaries of different 
appellations, whose moral practice was sometimes 
more than equivocal." (Page 508.) 

So you see that the intention of the ecclesiastics 
in prohibiting the reading of the Scriptural translations 
in particular cases (for the injunction was never gen- 
eral), and by lawless sectaries, was not a measure to 
suppress free inquiry, but simply to check the wild 
vagaries of fanatics whose principles were anarchistic 
and antagonistic to social order. In Germany alone, 
between 1460 and 15 17, there appeared nineteen edi- 
tions of the Scriptures in the different dialects. 

I will finish this lecture on Mr. Ingersoll's 
"Ghosts" by giving my private opinion as to the 
reality of the belief that spirits haunt our globe. 

By the word spirit I designate not only the souls 
of the dead, but also angels, both good and evil. In 
the ancient books of the Bible we read that angels 
appeared to Abraham, Lot, Jacob, Balaam, Josue, and 
Tobias; and numerous manifestations of supernatural 
messengers are recorded by the evangelists and apos- 
tles in the New. Testament. God has frequently sent 
angels on missions of love and mercy, wrath and 
vengeance. Omnipotence empowered an angel to slay 
seventy thousand soldiers in punishment of the sin of 
vanity, which David committed when he authorized 
his officers to number the people of Israel. The angel 



Lecture XV. 339 

of destruction unsheathed his flaming sword against 
the hosts of Assyria; and when the rays of the infant 
morn entered the tents of Sennacherib, he beheld the 
victory of Juda's God in the death of one hundred 
and eighty-five thousand of his army. An angel ap- 
peared to Hagar in the wilderness; an angel fed Elias 
in the desert; an angel transported Habbakuk from 
Judea to Babylon to administer to the corporal ne- 
cessities of Daniel, when the great prophet was incar- 
cerated in the den with lions. The Bible is also replete 
with stories of demoniacal possessions. Satan assumed 
the form of a serpent when he came to seduce the 
mother of the human race. St. Paul writes to the 
Corinthians that "Satan himself transformeth himself 
into an angel of light," for the purpose of beguiling 
his unwary victims. 

With the permission of God, Satan destroyed the 
oxen, asses, sheep, camels, and also the servants, and 
sons, and daughters of Job. The New Testament re- 
lates that the devil tempted Jesus; that he conveyed 
him to the pinnacle of the temple, and to the summit 
of a lofty mountain; and we read in the eighth, ninth, 
and twelfth chapters of Matthew, and in several other 
places, that Christ banished evil spirits from men who 
were deaf and dumb; and after their expulsion the 
victims of their power heard and spoke, palpably show- 
ing that wicked angels are sometimes allowed to afflict 
mankind with physical maladies. I could give many 
other quotations, but these are amply sufficient to* es- 
tablish the fact that Omnipotence permits both good 
and evil spirits to reveal themselves; that he not in- 
frequently deputes them as his envoys to assist the 
faithful and to punish the wicked. 



34° The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

Now, since the human soul is akin to angelic 
nature, since it has the power, in virtue of its essence, 
to roam through all the worlds, it is not inconsistent 
to believe that God may commission the spirits of the 
dead as his delegates to convey messages to the living. 
But is there an illustration of this nature in the Bible? 
Yes ; for in the twenty-eighth chapter of the first book 
of Kings we learn that Saul communicated with the 
witch at Endor to ascertain from the spirit of Samuel 
the issue of the battle which would be fought the next 
day between the Philistines and the phalanxes of Is- 
rael. The Bible states that Samuel responded to the 
voice of the enchantress, assuming his natural form 
and appearance, and replied to the queries of the king, 
and foretold his defeat and death. This is spiritualism 
in its modern significance. 

Profane history corroborates the opinion that 
the world is filled with the whispers of the grave. Pau- 
sanias relates that four hundred years after the battle 
of Marathon the neighing of horses and the wild and 
desperate shouts of martial bands could be heard dis- 
tinctly at night on that historic spot. Plutarch says 
that ghosts were frequently seen in the public baths, 
where several citizens of Cheronaea had been mur- 
dered. He also relates that the shade of Caesar entered 
the bedchamber of Brutus, and when accosted by the 
assassin, the sprite responded, "I am thy evil genius, 
Brutus; thou shalt see me at Philippi." Brutus boldly 
answered, "I'll meet thee there," — and the specter im- 
mediately vanished. Some time after he engaged 
Antony and Octavius, and the first day was victorious. 
The night before he was to fight the second battle, the 
same specter appeared to him again, but spoke not 



Lecture XV. 341 

a word. Brutus understood that his hour was near, 
and courted danger with all the violence of despair. 
Pliny the Younger mentions a house at Athens that 
was haunted. This house, he relates, was purchased 
by Athenodorus, a philosopher. One night he heard 
a strange noise like the clanking of chains, and saw 
a specter in human form, who beckoned him to follow. 
He obeyed, and the apparition conducted him to a 
certain place, and then vanished. Athenodorus re- 
ported the matter to the community, and a number 
of men were employed to search the place; and after 
digging for some time, they discovered a human skel- 
eton in chains, which they buried decently; and the 
specter never appeared again. 

Lucian, Augustine, Tertullian, Goerres de Mir- 
ville, give many instances of spirit manifestations. 
What are we to think of the pagan oracles? No 
doubt, information above human wisdom and the 
revelation of future contingent events were imparted 
by the evil spirits. We can not believe that intelligent 
men like Plato, Cicero, Horace, Virgil, and Homer 
would worship gods of stone without indications that 
deities of superior wisdom dwelt behind and spoke 
through these rude idols. This supposition can ac- 
count for the fact that millions of idolaters inhabit the 
globe to-day. We have ample proof that mediums 
have often spoken languages entirely unknown to 
them. 

Judge Edmonds, of New York, publicly testified 
that his daughter, after becoming a medium, spoke 
in nine or ten different tongues, though she only knew 
English and a smattering of French. Mediums have 
given information that they could not have known 



34 2 The Mistakes of Ingersoll. 

personally; and when in a trance, they have been im- 
passive to the effects of fire and many other kinds 
of physical pain. 

Dr. Brownson, one of the ablest thinkers and 
writers of this century, says in his Spirit Rapper, that 
while he was a spiritualist, he had the power of calling 
up different persons from a great distance. On one 
occasion he commanded an enemy to appear in his 
presence. Although living in another city, the man 
responded. Brownson recognized his voice. He took 
his sword, and thrust it several times in the air. He 
heard the enemy asking pardon for his offense. A few 
days afterwards he paid a visit to this man, and was 
astonished to find that he had received many wounds 
with a sword. Brownson writes that "the whole his- 
tory of the human race bristles with prodigies, with 
marvelous facts." 

However, I do not pretend to give a decided an- 
swer to this question. I admit that there are many 
impostures practiced by designing people, and it fre- 
quently occurs that seances are preconcerted plans 
to deceive the unsuspecting, and that mediums often 
utilize the credulity of their victims; but these cases 
of artifice do not annihilate the doctrine of spiritual- 
ism. I have proved the possibility of preternatural 
apparitions from the essence of spiritual substance, 
and I have shown that this possibility was realized in 
Biblical history; and, as Christians, we must accept 
these facts. Now, if the witch at Endor could conjure 
up the spirit of Samuel, with Divine permission, a 
medium of the nineteenth century may communicate 
with the souls of departed men. 

I maintain that, in some cases, Satanic spirits as- 



Lecture XV. 343 

sume the role of departed friends for the purpose of 
accomplishing the ruin of the living. God has made 
a revelation to mankind; and we are to glean our 
knowledge of the future world from the Divine oracle, 
instead of hearkening to the voices of the dead and 
the sighs of the tomb. Spiritualism is expressly con- 
demned in the Bible, especially in the books of Leviti- 
cus, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Second Kings, and Sec- 
ond Chronicles. 

Of course, none of these facts of Bible history will 
appeal to Mr. Ingersoll, as he does not believe in 
Divine revelation. But what answer will he give to 
those ponderous tomes that have been written by men 
of the present day — men of great genius, learning, 
and deep research? What will he say when I tell him 
that ghost stories are confirmed by the opinion of Mr. 
Matuschkin and Baron Wrangel, the famous Russian 
explorers of the Polar seas ; of Judge Edmonds, of the 
Supreme Court of New York; George Bancroft, the 
great historian; Horace Greeley; Fenimore Cooper, the 
famous American novelist; Lord Lindsey; Lord Bul- 
wer Lyttoo, the renowned English writer; the poets 
Bryant and Longfellow; Robert Dale Owen; Glad- 
stone, the erudite statesman; Thackeray; Hall; Trol- 
lope; Alfred Russell, Wallace; Owen; Howitt; Varley, 
the electrician; the English jurists Chambers and Cox; 
the English doctors of medicine Elliotson, Haddock, 
Cameron; the English professors William Crookes, 
Challis, de Morgan, Gregory, Huggins, and Mayo; 
Nathaniel P. Tallmadge, Ex-Governor of Wisconsin, 
and Dr. Hare, professor of chemistry in the University 
of Pennsylvania? These are all eminent men, and we 
can not afford to laugh at their views. As a Christian, 



344 The Mistakes' of Ingersoll. 

I admit the facts of preternatural manifestations re- 
corded in the Bible; but I am undecided in my views 
about the verity of those mentioned in profane history ; 
yet I am inclined to believe that many of them are 
true. However, I discredit most of the stories of 
witchcraft, and I condemn the severity with which 
some of the supposed victims of demoniacal posses- 
sions were punished. 

I have carefully perused all of Mr. Ingersoll's lec- 
tures, and I have discovered nothing which has not 
already been answered. The same old objections, pre- 
sented in a new light, appear on every page; and as 
I have shown that the most of his supposed facts are 
forgeries, and that his reasoning is false, it is unneces- 
sary to monopolize your time with repetitions of his- 
torical authorities. 

From the days of Paine until the present hour the 
voice of infidelity and atheism has echoed throughout 
this land from ocean to ocean, and from gulf to lakes ; 
and yet the faith of our people is firm and unshaken; 
the shadow of our church steeples falls on every hill 
and valley; the music of our church-bells proclaims 
the holy Sabbath to millions of devout worshipers; 
songs of prayer and praise go forth from every temple, 
and the love of a grand Nation's heart is borne aloft to 
the crystal throne of Omnipotence on the golden wings 
of angels. 



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